Key reasons for knee jerk, negative reactions to anything new
1. People genuinely are afraid that something new will cause problems - neophobia
2. Negative scary items are more newsworthy and eyecatching than something that praises
3. For some there is no better joy than to say "I told you so!" No one ever questions how many things they "told you" but did not come out true. One correct prediction is all that counts
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Negatives of a positive
About a couple of days ago the first cricket test match between India and Sri Lanka started. These two neighbors have played each other before. What's unique about the current series is that it is the first where ICC is trying out referral system for umpiring decisions.
The concept is simple. Any player from either side can question an umpire's decision. The decision is then reviewed based on the slow motion video and hawk-eye trajectory estimation. 22 cameras are placed in precise locations to give best possible angle as well as multiple angles. The third umpire sitting in front of state of art screens decides whether the decision was correct or not. Of course, no one should do this ad infinitum - hence there is a reasonable limit of 3 referral per team per innings. The idea is that the worst of three decisions will be reviewed in more detail. Of course there is no guarantee of the decisions being better, but it will mean that some of the borderline decisions will be reviewed for much longer time than the split second that a typical umpire gets to officiate.
There has been a dire need to technological assistance to make more accurate decisions, more often. A human umpire, with all his wisdom and experience, is still limited by the human equipment - the eye and the brain. They do excellent job and are accurate most of the time. Still, when the decisions can be easily controversial leading to various results like spectators burning effigies of umpires. Blaming umpiring errors for loss in a series is very common.
There has been immense progress in the technology with super slow motion, hawk-eye, sneakometers, and hot spot. Sure, none of these are fail safe, but they clearly provide extra information to those whose job it is to decide who is out or not.
Some progress has been made in this direction already. For examples, most close run out decisions are referred to the third umpire by the umpire on the ground. We have seen some impressive results where the batsmen are millimeters in or out of the line. All these decisions would have gone in favor of the batsmen - due to the benefit of the doubt. Batsmen, in turn have improved their running between the wickets and technique of planting the bat first.
With all these improvements, clearly for better, people still find arguments to somehow convert a positive into a negative. They look at the half filled glass, watch some water being poured into it, and still say "oh, but what about the remaining 10%? That emptiness is going to cause a big problem!" They forget that it was empty to begin with.
Take example of Ian Chappell, a former cricketer of note. He has opposed the referrals, points out, the system would bring justice for some but not for all. "If three referrals are deemed fruitless," Chappell wrote, "under the recommendations of the proposal a team would then have no further opportunity to ask for assistance from the third umpire. Consequently, the biggest howler ever perpetrated could then enter the score book unhindered. This would be classic ." What Mr. Chappell forgets is that these decisions which will go unchallenged after the third referral would have gone unchallenged any way.
There are others who remind us that "technology is neither foolproof nor 100% conclusive. Two catches, or non-catches, in the recently-concluded Headingley Test highlighted the problem. Both AB de Villiers and Michael Vaughan claimed catches that were referred to the television umpire. In the first instance, the ball was conclusively grounded. In Vaughan's case, two camera angles presented different pictures and the batsman was given the benefit of the doubt. The next day, Nasser Hussain demonstrated with the help of the Sky television crew how the camera could lie."(from cricinfo article http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/slvind/content/current/story/362176.html)
All this is valid, all it says is that all experts who judge borderline decisions are fallible - be them umpires, or be them technology or a combination. The referral system is going to simply improve the chances of some potential wrong decisions may be reversed.
Indian cricket team of the 70s was once called "capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory", and sometimes the description seemed apt. In the same vein, I find some thinkers "capable of snatching negative from the jaws of positive"
The concept is simple. Any player from either side can question an umpire's decision. The decision is then reviewed based on the slow motion video and hawk-eye trajectory estimation. 22 cameras are placed in precise locations to give best possible angle as well as multiple angles. The third umpire sitting in front of state of art screens decides whether the decision was correct or not. Of course, no one should do this ad infinitum - hence there is a reasonable limit of 3 referral per team per innings. The idea is that the worst of three decisions will be reviewed in more detail. Of course there is no guarantee of the decisions being better, but it will mean that some of the borderline decisions will be reviewed for much longer time than the split second that a typical umpire gets to officiate.
There has been a dire need to technological assistance to make more accurate decisions, more often. A human umpire, with all his wisdom and experience, is still limited by the human equipment - the eye and the brain. They do excellent job and are accurate most of the time. Still, when the decisions can be easily controversial leading to various results like spectators burning effigies of umpires. Blaming umpiring errors for loss in a series is very common.
There has been immense progress in the technology with super slow motion, hawk-eye, sneakometers, and hot spot. Sure, none of these are fail safe, but they clearly provide extra information to those whose job it is to decide who is out or not.
Some progress has been made in this direction already. For examples, most close run out decisions are referred to the third umpire by the umpire on the ground. We have seen some impressive results where the batsmen are millimeters in or out of the line. All these decisions would have gone in favor of the batsmen - due to the benefit of the doubt. Batsmen, in turn have improved their running between the wickets and technique of planting the bat first.
With all these improvements, clearly for better, people still find arguments to somehow convert a positive into a negative. They look at the half filled glass, watch some water being poured into it, and still say "oh, but what about the remaining 10%? That emptiness is going to cause a big problem!" They forget that it was empty to begin with.
Take example of Ian Chappell, a former cricketer of note. He has opposed the referrals, points out, the system would bring justice for some but not for all. "If three referrals are deemed fruitless," Chappell wrote, "under the recommendations of the proposal a team would then have no further opportunity to ask for assistance from the third umpire. Consequently, the biggest howler ever perpetrated could then enter the score book unhindered. This would be classic ." What Mr. Chappell forgets is that these decisions which will go unchallenged after the third referral would have gone unchallenged any way.
There are others who remind us that "technology is neither foolproof nor 100% conclusive. Two catches, or non-catches, in the recently-concluded Headingley Test highlighted the problem. Both AB de Villiers and Michael Vaughan claimed catches that were referred to the television umpire. In the first instance, the ball was conclusively grounded. In Vaughan's case, two camera angles presented different pictures and the batsman was given the benefit of the doubt. The next day, Nasser Hussain demonstrated with the help of the Sky television crew how the camera could lie."(from cricinfo article http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/slvind/content/current/story/362176.html)
All this is valid, all it says is that all experts who judge borderline decisions are fallible - be them umpires, or be them technology or a combination. The referral system is going to simply improve the chances of some potential wrong decisions may be reversed.
Indian cricket team of the 70s was once called "capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory", and sometimes the description seemed apt. In the same vein, I find some thinkers "capable of snatching negative from the jaws of positive"
Monday, July 21, 2008
Re a drop of golden sun
Encient Egyptians worshipped the Sun god, commonly named as Ra. It is also believed that the original prouonciation might be Rei, hence the alternative spelling suggested is Re (wikipedia). The original meaning is not clear. It could have been a name for the Sun. It could also probably mean "creative". In India, the Sun was one of the chief Deity in the Vedic times.
In the past three thousand years or so, the Sun lost its place to other deities. However, we are about to rectify the mistake. The Sun will soon take the revered position. I am not saying that there will be cults or religions that will accept him as a new God. But even in deeper sense we will start worshipping him, not by singing him hymns or asking him for salvation, but truely depending on the Sun for our existence.
Don't get me wrong, we already do. We owe our existence to the Sun. If the Sun weren't there, we would not be on this earth. Morever, we depend on the whole cycle of nature that generates food and livelihood for us - the cycle that is powered by the sun. And our societies are powered by oil or coal, that was generated and stored in the Earth's crust because of the bounty from the Sun.
Things are going to change. And change for the better. Instead of the stored energy like the stale frozen food, we will harvest the sun directly for a cleaner source of energy.
Think about this. The total energy consumption of the world including oil, coal, hydroelectric is sizable at 15 Terra watts. (Terra watts is thousand Giga watts, and Giga is thousand mega and so on. ) This is huge - because it means per person it is ~2.3 kilo watt. But it is puny compared to what the Sun delivers to the Earth - whopping 85,000 Terra watts. Compare the current usage of 15 to the available 85,000! It's like using 0.02 percent of what is available. Imagine you are getting $2,000 a month, and spending it alll. But what if someone told you that you are throwing away you could earn $10,000,000 a month!
Of course all of that 85,000 is not usable, a lot goes in the seas to warm the planet and maintaining the ecosystem. But 0.02% will hardly be missed.
If you look at the humanity as an organism, we are right now in the egg stage, about to break out into the open. The egg contains essetial proteins and nutrients, so that the bird can grow and build itself. The stored nutrients are essential for the growth. But when those supplies dwindles, the bird breaks the egg, comes outside into the open world to find food on its own and breathe fresh air. Right now we are cracking the egg open. The egg is about to hatch. Outside there is free air, open world that has no bounds.
In the past three thousand years or so, the Sun lost its place to other deities. However, we are about to rectify the mistake. The Sun will soon take the revered position. I am not saying that there will be cults or religions that will accept him as a new God. But even in deeper sense we will start worshipping him, not by singing him hymns or asking him for salvation, but truely depending on the Sun for our existence.
Don't get me wrong, we already do. We owe our existence to the Sun. If the Sun weren't there, we would not be on this earth. Morever, we depend on the whole cycle of nature that generates food and livelihood for us - the cycle that is powered by the sun. And our societies are powered by oil or coal, that was generated and stored in the Earth's crust because of the bounty from the Sun.
Things are going to change. And change for the better. Instead of the stored energy like the stale frozen food, we will harvest the sun directly for a cleaner source of energy.
Think about this. The total energy consumption of the world including oil, coal, hydroelectric is sizable at 15 Terra watts. (Terra watts is thousand Giga watts, and Giga is thousand mega and so on. ) This is huge - because it means per person it is ~2.3 kilo watt. But it is puny compared to what the Sun delivers to the Earth - whopping 85,000 Terra watts. Compare the current usage of 15 to the available 85,000! It's like using 0.02 percent of what is available. Imagine you are getting $2,000 a month, and spending it alll. But what if someone told you that you are throwing away you could earn $10,000,000 a month!
Of course all of that 85,000 is not usable, a lot goes in the seas to warm the planet and maintaining the ecosystem. But 0.02% will hardly be missed.
If you look at the humanity as an organism, we are right now in the egg stage, about to break out into the open. The egg contains essetial proteins and nutrients, so that the bird can grow and build itself. The stored nutrients are essential for the growth. But when those supplies dwindles, the bird breaks the egg, comes outside into the open world to find food on its own and breathe fresh air. Right now we are cracking the egg open. The egg is about to hatch. Outside there is free air, open world that has no bounds.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Indian rice prices have dropped since 1950
Recently I had a heated discussion with some friends - most of them settled in the US with excellent IT careers. The topic was about how everything has suddenly become expensive in India. I tried to point out that ever since independence, the average life span has gone up from about 35 years to 69 years, infant mortality has gone down from 25% to 7% of live births, literacy and level of education has improved, and poverty levels have gone down from 75% to about 25%, even cell phones have permeated to about 20% of population. All this points to the fact that life has improved. But the counter argument was if you don't have money, what good is long life, or even cell phones? If you don't have enough to feed yourself, increasing life is increasing agony.
This was a bit surprising to me because about 3 years ago, when I have made a point about improving life due to improved economic conditions, everyone has said, what good is money if you don't have access to things that improve lives. This time it was the economic argument. Looks like it is a shifting target. Nevertheless, the question of whether basic things are getting more expensive or not is a valid question, and needs to be answered once and for all.
It has been about 60 odd years since independence. If we take that point as a reference point, we should be able to ask, for a typical man (50th percentile) have the necessities become more expensive compared to the money you earned. This is fairly straightforward calculation, though it is a bit tedious. So I am sticking with single example - the price of rice.
In 1950, the planning commission data shows that the size of the economy (GDP) of India was about 90 billion rupees. With a population of 360 million, that translates to about Rs. 250 per capita. Now, the per capita income is around Rs 37,000. So the income has gone up by a factor of 150. How have the rice prices done? Well, by a very rough estimates, the rice prices have gone up from about Rs 0.25 a kg to about Rs 13 a kg. This means rice prices have gone up by a factor of 65. So for the comman man, the rice prices have actually decreased by a factor of more than 2. No wonder the rice consumption per capita has gone up from about 40kg to about 80 kg (wikipedia). Indian production of rice has outpaced the the population by roughly 1% over the 60 years, every year. And this nicely reflects in the corresponding drop in prices. The drop is even substantial if you consider that every person is entitled to have some basic supply on their ration card at much lower prices (~Rs 5/kg? need to confirm).
I also came across the cosumer personal expenditure survey performed by NSSO, national sample survey organization. The findings are humbling, and yet eye opening. They found the distribution of all families that spend X amount of money on personal expenditure - food, clothing, shoes, transport, restaurants, tea etc. This does not include rent, investments, feeding livestock etc. What turns out is that most people - around the bottom 80% spend almost a fixed amount per month per person on food - very clost to Rs200. This seems paltry (and it is by the rest of the world standard), but it means about Rs 1000 for a family of 5 (two of these 5 are under 15). This buys you at least 15kg of rice, 10kg of wheat, 10 kg of pulses, 5 kg of vegetables, some oil, 5 kg of sugar, a dozen eggs, fuel, spices and cooking supplies. This does not sound extravagent, but it allows you to survive. The lowest 20% are a little worse off and need to use the lower grade supplies available on ration card.
This is by no means a wonderful situation. I am not making a point that everything is hunky-dory. All I am saying is that it is lot better than what it used to be. In 1950, it was dire - about 75% people were below poverty line - meaning they could not afford even the subsitance material mentioned above.
This was a bit surprising to me because about 3 years ago, when I have made a point about improving life due to improved economic conditions, everyone has said, what good is money if you don't have access to things that improve lives. This time it was the economic argument. Looks like it is a shifting target. Nevertheless, the question of whether basic things are getting more expensive or not is a valid question, and needs to be answered once and for all.
It has been about 60 odd years since independence. If we take that point as a reference point, we should be able to ask, for a typical man (50th percentile) have the necessities become more expensive compared to the money you earned. This is fairly straightforward calculation, though it is a bit tedious. So I am sticking with single example - the price of rice.
In 1950, the planning commission data shows that the size of the economy (GDP) of India was about 90 billion rupees. With a population of 360 million, that translates to about Rs. 250 per capita. Now, the per capita income is around Rs 37,000. So the income has gone up by a factor of 150. How have the rice prices done? Well, by a very rough estimates, the rice prices have gone up from about Rs 0.25 a kg to about Rs 13 a kg. This means rice prices have gone up by a factor of 65. So for the comman man, the rice prices have actually decreased by a factor of more than 2. No wonder the rice consumption per capita has gone up from about 40kg to about 80 kg (wikipedia). Indian production of rice has outpaced the the population by roughly 1% over the 60 years, every year. And this nicely reflects in the corresponding drop in prices. The drop is even substantial if you consider that every person is entitled to have some basic supply on their ration card at much lower prices (~Rs 5/kg? need to confirm).
I also came across the cosumer personal expenditure survey performed by NSSO, national sample survey organization. The findings are humbling, and yet eye opening. They found the distribution of all families that spend X amount of money on personal expenditure - food, clothing, shoes, transport, restaurants, tea etc. This does not include rent, investments, feeding livestock etc. What turns out is that most people - around the bottom 80% spend almost a fixed amount per month per person on food - very clost to Rs200. This seems paltry (and it is by the rest of the world standard), but it means about Rs 1000 for a family of 5 (two of these 5 are under 15). This buys you at least 15kg of rice, 10kg of wheat, 10 kg of pulses, 5 kg of vegetables, some oil, 5 kg of sugar, a dozen eggs, fuel, spices and cooking supplies. This does not sound extravagent, but it allows you to survive. The lowest 20% are a little worse off and need to use the lower grade supplies available on ration card.
This is by no means a wonderful situation. I am not making a point that everything is hunky-dory. All I am saying is that it is lot better than what it used to be. In 1950, it was dire - about 75% people were below poverty line - meaning they could not afford even the subsitance material mentioned above.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Cultural Invasion or union?
One of the complaints that everyone has is that the West is encroaching the other cultures, and eroding the existing values. Examples often sited are McDonalds and Hollywood flicks. This supposedly covers food, entertainment and fashion sense; not to mention the sexual values. I really don't understand the argument that teenagers learn promiscuity because they see it on screens - wonder how our cousins the chimpanzees are promiscuous without the advantage of hollywood!
Anyway, there is a grain of truth in those complains, but only a small grain. True, McDonald's and other institutions have slowly captured the low end food market across the world. True, that Hollywood movies are setting standards (!) for entertainment.
What I am surprised at is how the cultural encroachments of one culture over the other are treated differently based on whether it is happening right now or whether it happened hundreds of years ago. When Alexander attacked Afghanistan and India, he left rulers in the areas he conqured. Two thousand years ago the local art changed. Greek symbols and styles made their way into different designs, architecture, art. I distinctly reading about it as cultural union, creating a new style "Gandhara style".
In posterity, we have the luxury of looking back, and applying the standards of beuty of our age to proclaim that Gandhara style was actually a good thing. But for the artisans who worked with the traditional designs it must have been a horrible time. You have a new foriegn government, that has its own idea of what is aesthetically pleasing (because they are used to the Greek culture) and funds the new architecture. The upper class, wanting to be in good books with the rulers, starts emulating them, and demanding newer design. Since the locals don't know how to produce them, they import cutting down on the local artisan's business. The culture trickles down to lower strata who want emulate the upper classes and demand diminishes further. A lot of local artisan die out, and the money is diverted to the Greek artisans. Only those who adopt survive. But any learning takes time. And the intervening times are tough.
Isn't that exactly what is happening right now in terms of food habits and movies? Pizzas, Burgers and Fried Chicken is new to many developing countries, and is thriving because the change in the taste of people due to need to emulate. This happens all the time. Then why do we consider what happened 2300 years ago as good thing vs what is happening today?
All cultures evolve, and the change is unbearable to some part of the population that is used to the good old ways. The key difference between 21st century and 3rd century BC is that we are living in the current one and somebody else lived in the 3rd century. Someone else suffered. We tend to look back on our ancestry and remember the good parts. We look at ourselves, and highlight the bad parts. Maybe 40th century anthropologists will dig up the records and say, gee, the global cultural unification took place, and look at us now - everyone is trying to assert their individuality by owning a restaurant that is designed to serve only themselves and their diverse little tastes. Things were so good back then!
We are kind of fickle that way.
Anyway, there is a grain of truth in those complains, but only a small grain. True, McDonald's and other institutions have slowly captured the low end food market across the world. True, that Hollywood movies are setting standards (!) for entertainment.
What I am surprised at is how the cultural encroachments of one culture over the other are treated differently based on whether it is happening right now or whether it happened hundreds of years ago. When Alexander attacked Afghanistan and India, he left rulers in the areas he conqured. Two thousand years ago the local art changed. Greek symbols and styles made their way into different designs, architecture, art. I distinctly reading about it as cultural union, creating a new style "Gandhara style".
In posterity, we have the luxury of looking back, and applying the standards of beuty of our age to proclaim that Gandhara style was actually a good thing. But for the artisans who worked with the traditional designs it must have been a horrible time. You have a new foriegn government, that has its own idea of what is aesthetically pleasing (because they are used to the Greek culture) and funds the new architecture. The upper class, wanting to be in good books with the rulers, starts emulating them, and demanding newer design. Since the locals don't know how to produce them, they import cutting down on the local artisan's business. The culture trickles down to lower strata who want emulate the upper classes and demand diminishes further. A lot of local artisan die out, and the money is diverted to the Greek artisans. Only those who adopt survive. But any learning takes time. And the intervening times are tough.
Isn't that exactly what is happening right now in terms of food habits and movies? Pizzas, Burgers and Fried Chicken is new to many developing countries, and is thriving because the change in the taste of people due to need to emulate. This happens all the time. Then why do we consider what happened 2300 years ago as good thing vs what is happening today?
All cultures evolve, and the change is unbearable to some part of the population that is used to the good old ways. The key difference between 21st century and 3rd century BC is that we are living in the current one and somebody else lived in the 3rd century. Someone else suffered. We tend to look back on our ancestry and remember the good parts. We look at ourselves, and highlight the bad parts. Maybe 40th century anthropologists will dig up the records and say, gee, the global cultural unification took place, and look at us now - everyone is trying to assert their individuality by owning a restaurant that is designed to serve only themselves and their diverse little tastes. Things were so good back then!
We are kind of fickle that way.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Old is fool's gold
I just read an article in today's (6/21/2008) Mercury News, Drive section by Richard Russel. The title of the article is "Now and Then". He compares how today's cars are superior to the automotive industry output 30 years ago. He compares a 1975 corvette and the same model sold in 2008. The comparison is eyeopening.
[need a table here]
You can see that whether you look at any aspect of the car, 2008 beats its grandfather hands down. It is faster, more powerful, more fuel efficient, and less polluting. Any engineering feat requires that we make a compromise. If we want to build a faster car, the milage might suffer. This is true for today's car. But the crucial point is that when you compare it to the cars a generation ago, we see that we have miraculously managed to improve each facet. And it is even cheaper - lot more people are affording cars like the 1975 corvette, than they used to 30 years ago. Heck, even a run of the mill 2008 honda accord is sportier than the 1975 corvette. (need to confirm, and quote sales figures for 2008 honda accord vs 1975 corvette)
Now you will say wait a minute, I am not comparing apples to apples. I am comparing a top of the line sports car of 75 to a family box of 2008. The numbers are obviously greater for the family sedan, than a sports car. But that's the whole point - in 1975, you paid a pretty penny to get 270 horsepower engine that gave you certain acceleration, speed and agility. Now that power comes standard on some of the higher end accords. The bar has been raised. The price has dropped down. More people are getting what only a select few got in terms of performance.
Of course you can't buy the mystic and glamor that the old corvette brought you in 1975. To get the same glamor, you might have to buy 2008 corvette - and that one has a comparable price. But glamor is such a funny thing. Glamor or bragging rights by definition have a small supply, and hence will command higher and higher price. I will be entirely happy if glamor keeps getting expensive. I consider it as a welfare tax on rich people that the rich people charge each other.
It is easy to misconstrue the above example. You might think that I am saying progress is only for rich people. After all, only rich people can afford corvettes. Even the honda accords are not that cheap - they cost about 5 times the world's per capita income. Even examples of computers becoming cheaper does not go down well with a poor farm worker in China.
True, that cars are expensive enough so that only the rich at this moment can afford them. But when we focus on objects, we loose track of the bigger picture. We need to think comfortable transport, with great flexibility - rather than a car. That is improving all the time over the last 100 years. Just before the advent of railways - 95% of the world population did not travel beyond 10 miles. Not that they did not need to, or did not want to, but because it was so darn hard! Travelling was fraught with danger.
The transporation machinary has been growing and becoming more comfortable too. And yes, the number of cars is increasing. With the advent of Tata Nano, (and the competition it has spurred) the huge population between 40th and 60th percentile earners can suddenly afford cars. We are at the beginning of S curve for the cars to become widespread. And if you have concerns about pollution, look at the corvetter comparisons. Modern cars simply don't pollute. Period.
There are some who complain about the carbon footprints and greenhouse effect. To them I can only say this is such a low item on the engineering problems humanity faces, it is below the cut line right now. When most other problems are solved, humanity will solve this problem too. (Unless everyone realizes that we don't have any control over it - but that's another article!)
Yes, I envision that the world of 9 billion minds will have something like 2 to 3 billion cars. Those all put together will cause less pollution than the 200 million or so that we have right now. In fact, they will probably run on electricity that is generated using wind, sun and nuclear power - hence they will have a smaller carbon footprint too. How will this happen, and why do I believe in it? Read in an article to be written soon.
Friday, June 20, 2008
The Do's of life (incomplete)
It is interesting to see how the attitudes of humanity are shaped by religions and parental attitudes. All religions tell you how to live. "Love thy neighbor" is certainly a positive message given by most religions. It gets converted to "don't ever get pally with non-neighbors, who incidentally are defined as people of different religion". Message for trust and friendship gets converted into fear and distrust. This probably comes from a general low self esteem, and fear of failure.
The question is what is the alternative? The biggest "do" for life in my opinion is "Love thyself". This is somehow missing from most of the religions. Religions regulate public life, interaction with others from the society. As far the interaction with self is concerned, it is very negative. In fact messages like "you are born a sinner" "your fate is determined by what (bad things) you did in the last life" are pretty common. The low self esteem helps the religion to make everyone fall in line, submit to the higher authority, walk the straight and narrow.
But everyone really liking themself is the key to developing any healthy society. It is the next step to the freedom of mind, once the body is freed from the strife of ill health, and drudgery of work.
This process has started, though it's still in its infancy. Just like thousand years ago only a handful percentage of people enjoyed long life and less than 50 hours a week of work, today only a few percentage of people enjoy the excellent mental health. There is some weak correlation between the financial strength and mental well being. (need data here).
The question is what is the alternative? The biggest "do" for life in my opinion is "Love thyself". This is somehow missing from most of the religions. Religions regulate public life, interaction with others from the society. As far the interaction with self is concerned, it is very negative. In fact messages like "you are born a sinner" "your fate is determined by what (bad things) you did in the last life" are pretty common. The low self esteem helps the religion to make everyone fall in line, submit to the higher authority, walk the straight and narrow.
But everyone really liking themself is the key to developing any healthy society. It is the next step to the freedom of mind, once the body is freed from the strife of ill health, and drudgery of work.
This process has started, though it's still in its infancy. Just like thousand years ago only a handful percentage of people enjoyed long life and less than 50 hours a week of work, today only a few percentage of people enjoy the excellent mental health. There is some weak correlation between the financial strength and mental well being. (need data here).
Thursday, June 5, 2008
The "don'ts" of life
This is an information age. Day in and day out we are barraged with information of all kinds. Most of the information unfortunately, is what I called "don't" kind of information. It tells you what not to do. It warns you of danger, or tells you not to do something, or says how something is recently shown to be bad for you. This kind of information takes the enjoyment out of life because it glorifies the pain and the risk associated with every pleasure. Don't eat ice cream or cookies because those have sugar and fats, and they are bad for you. Don't go in the sun because it will cause skin cancer, staying up too late is bad for you, don't spend a single dime from the 401k because it is bad for you... There are countless examples of direct advise that we get from every nook of the cyberspace.
The "don't" advise has a distinct parental tone to it. It is of course the voice of experience. It comes from the authority figures. It has the all knowing feel to it. It says, I know better how to live the life than you do. More often than not it focuses on the limited area. It has fear of failure built into it like Aesop's fables. The voice also makes some assumptions. These assumptions are not entirely wrong but like one size fits all clothing, they don't fit anyone exactly. On good days the advise is on the right side for most people, but on bad days, it is so off the track that it is not even funny. The voice of caution actually leads to danger. The caution is against a small yet very visible risk, whereas the danger you undertake by following the cautionary advise is more hidden. For some reason the visible small always wins over the invisible large. How many times have we seen a hero saving a little girl's life by risking a population of multitude?
One example of it is scare about bicycling as a dangerous activity. Now I know, that most parents encourage their kids to ride bike, and also the recent emphasis on wearing helmets. Helmets, like seat belts, save lives - there is no question about that. Yet, after a certain age very few people ride bicycles. Whether as a hobby or as a proper commuting vehicle, bicycle is used too rarely. Part of the reason is that we in the US rely so much on the automobile, and have built our lives around it - which in turn mean working far enough away from the home, not building an adequate public transport system. But one underlying cause of the preference for the car is the perception that riding is not very safe.
Those who cry out that the bicycling is not very safe, show the following statistics. [need statistics here]. But they never show the statistics of what not biking leads to. That statistics is much more difficult to get, and not visible. One has to deduce that given reasonable amount of biking, less people will drive. Which means there will be fewer accidents during driving. Also, the roads will be safer for bicycle riders too - meaning fewer riding fatalities. This is not in dispute, anyone with reasonable common sense will see this. But even beyond the road fatalities, there are lives lost to diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and other diseases. The main cause behind these is the sedentary lifestyle that we lead. If all of a sudden everyone started riding a bicycle, we will have fewer deaths. I have no doubt about that.
The reason that brought up this example is not to ask everyone to bike. The example shows how the nagging, shrill voices that caution you can actually lead to a worse life. They ask you to err on the safer side - but their definition of safe is here and now. They follow naive arguments like Action A leads to result B which is bad for you. Hence don't do the action A. What they miss is that lack of action A will lead to another result C which might be even worse.
The second problem is that result B may not always be bad or at least bad enough to warrant giving up action A. For example, a dont that we hear most often is that "Don't eat fatty and carb rich food, it will shorten your life". This is an absolute truth in a statistical sense. Too much of eating comfort foods will shorten your life span. But the question is how much of life are you gaining and how much fun are you giving up? There is a cost associated with giving up good food. Someone may argue that other healthier food tastes just as good, but I don't buy it. Eating creamy, sugary, fatty stuff feels really good. It satisfies not only the taste buds, but the entire body and mind.
I am not against moderation. Of course if you are eating 300 gm of carbs every day and you cut down to 250 you will not miss it too much, the cost will be small. This cutdown may lead to some amount of better health, which is your gain. The gain will outweigh the cost very easily. But every 50 gm of carbs you cut down, the cost will be progressively much higher. And the rewards will keep on getting smaller. There will be a point for each person where the costs are simply not worth the reward, and you settle at that point. This is entirely sensible. The voice of advise does a good thing by making aware of the rewards. However, it goes to the extreme of saying that increasing the length of your life is so important that you should keep on making this sacrifice and eat pretty much nothing but boiled veggies, boiled chicken, and fruit. I know I am exagerating a bit, but the example here is again to show that the donter miss this subtle balance that everyone decides for themselves. One reason for this shriller nature of don't voice is that Doctors are forced to give "safest is the best" advise. They face too much risk of lawsuits if they give advise like "you know, a couple cigerettes a day didn't harm no one. If you enjoy them, sure, go ahead". They simply go into black and white mode and say "No smoking. Period."
The point I am trying to make is that of the attitude. If we listen to the media, we end up getting the feeling that "boy, I am doing so many things wrong". This is attitude of pessimism, half empty cup. It is bound to build a low esteem society. Instead we should be saying "I am doing most of the things right, and boy I am succeeding." If we take some known risks boldly, we will in fact live better longer and not to mention more fulfilling life. It is with this positive attitude that we will achieve the confident world of future.
The "don't" advise has a distinct parental tone to it. It is of course the voice of experience. It comes from the authority figures. It has the all knowing feel to it. It says, I know better how to live the life than you do. More often than not it focuses on the limited area. It has fear of failure built into it like Aesop's fables. The voice also makes some assumptions. These assumptions are not entirely wrong but like one size fits all clothing, they don't fit anyone exactly. On good days the advise is on the right side for most people, but on bad days, it is so off the track that it is not even funny. The voice of caution actually leads to danger. The caution is against a small yet very visible risk, whereas the danger you undertake by following the cautionary advise is more hidden. For some reason the visible small always wins over the invisible large. How many times have we seen a hero saving a little girl's life by risking a population of multitude?
One example of it is scare about bicycling as a dangerous activity. Now I know, that most parents encourage their kids to ride bike, and also the recent emphasis on wearing helmets. Helmets, like seat belts, save lives - there is no question about that. Yet, after a certain age very few people ride bicycles. Whether as a hobby or as a proper commuting vehicle, bicycle is used too rarely. Part of the reason is that we in the US rely so much on the automobile, and have built our lives around it - which in turn mean working far enough away from the home, not building an adequate public transport system. But one underlying cause of the preference for the car is the perception that riding is not very safe.
Those who cry out that the bicycling is not very safe, show the following statistics. [need statistics here]. But they never show the statistics of what not biking leads to. That statistics is much more difficult to get, and not visible. One has to deduce that given reasonable amount of biking, less people will drive. Which means there will be fewer accidents during driving. Also, the roads will be safer for bicycle riders too - meaning fewer riding fatalities. This is not in dispute, anyone with reasonable common sense will see this. But even beyond the road fatalities, there are lives lost to diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and other diseases. The main cause behind these is the sedentary lifestyle that we lead. If all of a sudden everyone started riding a bicycle, we will have fewer deaths. I have no doubt about that.
The reason that brought up this example is not to ask everyone to bike. The example shows how the nagging, shrill voices that caution you can actually lead to a worse life. They ask you to err on the safer side - but their definition of safe is here and now. They follow naive arguments like Action A leads to result B which is bad for you. Hence don't do the action A. What they miss is that lack of action A will lead to another result C which might be even worse.
The second problem is that result B may not always be bad or at least bad enough to warrant giving up action A. For example, a dont that we hear most often is that "Don't eat fatty and carb rich food, it will shorten your life". This is an absolute truth in a statistical sense. Too much of eating comfort foods will shorten your life span. But the question is how much of life are you gaining and how much fun are you giving up? There is a cost associated with giving up good food. Someone may argue that other healthier food tastes just as good, but I don't buy it. Eating creamy, sugary, fatty stuff feels really good. It satisfies not only the taste buds, but the entire body and mind.
I am not against moderation. Of course if you are eating 300 gm of carbs every day and you cut down to 250 you will not miss it too much, the cost will be small. This cutdown may lead to some amount of better health, which is your gain. The gain will outweigh the cost very easily. But every 50 gm of carbs you cut down, the cost will be progressively much higher. And the rewards will keep on getting smaller. There will be a point for each person where the costs are simply not worth the reward, and you settle at that point. This is entirely sensible. The voice of advise does a good thing by making aware of the rewards. However, it goes to the extreme of saying that increasing the length of your life is so important that you should keep on making this sacrifice and eat pretty much nothing but boiled veggies, boiled chicken, and fruit. I know I am exagerating a bit, but the example here is again to show that the donter miss this subtle balance that everyone decides for themselves. One reason for this shriller nature of don't voice is that Doctors are forced to give "safest is the best" advise. They face too much risk of lawsuits if they give advise like "you know, a couple cigerettes a day didn't harm no one. If you enjoy them, sure, go ahead". They simply go into black and white mode and say "No smoking. Period."
The point I am trying to make is that of the attitude. If we listen to the media, we end up getting the feeling that "boy, I am doing so many things wrong". This is attitude of pessimism, half empty cup. It is bound to build a low esteem society. Instead we should be saying "I am doing most of the things right, and boy I am succeeding." If we take some known risks boldly, we will in fact live better longer and not to mention more fulfilling life. It is with this positive attitude that we will achieve the confident world of future.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Good ole' nostalgia
There are some distinct phases that almost everyone goes through. Childhood is marked by curiosity and learning. Youth is marked by energy, earnestness and confidence. Middle age is when you start losing the brand new life smell and relax into the same old same old. As you start getting even older, nostalgia starts to set in.
Why do we get nostalgic? My guess is that by then you have too much to reminisce, you have lost your youth for good, and facing the pain of old age and void of nothingness ahead. Memories are sweet. And more often than not you end up remembering them to be sweeter. You are also jealous of the young people, just for having what they have - youth. That's when you start saying the good old days were really good, and these undeserving yuppies have got it too easy. In short their grapes are sour, mine were sweeter.
Recognizing nostalgic statements is easy. Any sentence that contains the word "Nowadays" is almost certainly nostalgic. Especially when it talks about how things are bad nowadays. Almost no one under 20 uses the word “nowadays”. They are too excited by the new things that are happening today, and about to happen tomorrow. They hardly have time to talk about the yesterdays. Also any derogatory or even worried statement about the "new generation" or "kids these days" has a stamp of nostalgia on it. Any one talking about "family values" is talking through a nostalgic microphone. If you want to keep your youth, you should pay attention to your mind as well as your body. If you find yourself using these phrases a lot often than you used to try to think of the good old days, when you didn't do it as often.
Nostalgia is not a new phenomenon. It's been there for a few centuries definitely - because we have recorded statements. But I have a feeling it transcends civilization and cultures. I am sure an Egyptian who grew up to a ripe age of 50 reminisced about how the newer pyramids are just plain blocks of stones and theirs were works of art. It is difficult to say about nostalgia in prehistoric period, because most people probably died before turning soft and nostalgic. Those were the days, man!
Nostalgia rears its ugly head at many intellectual junctures. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that those considered intellectuals are already in the nostalgic phase. Anthropologists are especially prone to it (of course, not all). They call bones of people who died of unnatural cause as a proof of the society following "ritualistic killing" somehow making it sound better than murder. They also sometimes call graffiti as "sex symbolism". Nomadic tribes that killed their young because the food was scarce are called "in tune with the natural rhythm of plenty and scarcity". The eulogistic wording for what were really savage ways of our ancestors shouts of nostalgia. We are afraid of denigrating non-western, and ancient civilizations, even though the so called "civilizations" and communities had institutionalized oppression, slavery and murder. Historians too fall into this trap sometimes - calling certain periods as "golden age".
Nostalgic thinking combined with media is especially potent combination when there is a real problem to talk about. These experts come out of the woodwork to conclude that things are taking turn for the worse. The media loves them, they keep the reader/viewer glued - nobody turns the page or touches that dial.
Why do we get nostalgic? My guess is that by then you have too much to reminisce, you have lost your youth for good, and facing the pain of old age and void of nothingness ahead. Memories are sweet. And more often than not you end up remembering them to be sweeter. You are also jealous of the young people, just for having what they have - youth. That's when you start saying the good old days were really good, and these undeserving yuppies have got it too easy. In short their grapes are sour, mine were sweeter.
Recognizing nostalgic statements is easy. Any sentence that contains the word "Nowadays" is almost certainly nostalgic. Especially when it talks about how things are bad nowadays. Almost no one under 20 uses the word “nowadays”. They are too excited by the new things that are happening today, and about to happen tomorrow. They hardly have time to talk about the yesterdays. Also any derogatory or even worried statement about the "new generation" or "kids these days" has a stamp of nostalgia on it. Any one talking about "family values" is talking through a nostalgic microphone. If you want to keep your youth, you should pay attention to your mind as well as your body. If you find yourself using these phrases a lot often than you used to try to think of the good old days, when you didn't do it as often.
Nostalgia is not a new phenomenon. It's been there for a few centuries definitely - because we have recorded statements. But I have a feeling it transcends civilization and cultures. I am sure an Egyptian who grew up to a ripe age of 50 reminisced about how the newer pyramids are just plain blocks of stones and theirs were works of art. It is difficult to say about nostalgia in prehistoric period, because most people probably died before turning soft and nostalgic. Those were the days, man!
Nostalgia rears its ugly head at many intellectual junctures. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that those considered intellectuals are already in the nostalgic phase. Anthropologists are especially prone to it (of course, not all). They call bones of people who died of unnatural cause as a proof of the society following "ritualistic killing" somehow making it sound better than murder. They also sometimes call graffiti as "sex symbolism". Nomadic tribes that killed their young because the food was scarce are called "in tune with the natural rhythm of plenty and scarcity". The eulogistic wording for what were really savage ways of our ancestors shouts of nostalgia. We are afraid of denigrating non-western, and ancient civilizations, even though the so called "civilizations" and communities had institutionalized oppression, slavery and murder. Historians too fall into this trap sometimes - calling certain periods as "golden age".
Nostalgic thinking combined with media is especially potent combination when there is a real problem to talk about. These experts come out of the woodwork to conclude that things are taking turn for the worse. The media loves them, they keep the reader/viewer glued - nobody turns the page or touches that dial.
Mother and child
A common theme for the modern world is about our relationship with the Nature. This relationship is usually expressed ruefully using many statements. “We have come very far from Nature”. “The modern man has lost the connection to the mother earth that the caveman had”. “We no longer have reverence for the Nature.”
The statements like this are not completely false. But how true are they? Rather more importantly, how useful are they? Mind you, they are not meant to be simple statements of fact. They certainly carry heavy moral judgment. We humans have been bad boys (girls are supposedly nicer in this respect). We have sinned, neglected our mother for our selfish interests. We have depleted her resources, cut down the beautiful trees, stopped worshipping the elements as we once did, we have become slaves of Satan.
The moral implecations are supposed to follow if the statements are true. But are they? Well, my feeling they seem like they have graduated from cliché-hood to truth, sometimes without passing the examination. Some are partially true, and some are absolutely false and even those that are true, do not lead to the serious moral implications. The picture is less of a flagrant sinner who raped mother earth, and more of a poor starved society that did not know better and was forced into using whatever they could to defend their existence. As humanity becomes more stable and powerful, it is undoing some of the harms, and ultimately will become as little intrusive as possible.
The trick is to remove the statements from emotionally and politically charged environment to dissecting table of sensibility and put them under the microscope of objective thinking. Make it less of a moral issue and take it to the realm of a problem that humanity needs to solve.
Are we going away from the Nature? Of course we are. Nature can be a very dangerous place. There are predators everywhere. Wild animals, snakes, various pests, harmful bacteria, viruses. These all take toll on human life - even the caveman tried to avoid them. Modern nature conservationists are not much different – they try to live in homes that are free of all the above. That's why you have never heard of "save cockroaches campaign" or "E-coli preservation act". The elements are not too nice either. It rains, snows, there are tornadoes. So we wear clothes, and make ourselves comfortable inside walls built of wood, stone, bricks and cement. To fit more people we build skyscrapers made with steel.
This much distance is good, I hope everyone will agree. So what other distance are we talking about? It is more of emotional distance that everyone worries about. We no longer revere nature as we used too. There were people who worshipped various natural deities, the Sun, the wind, the Rain. Sometimes they went a bit too far by sacrificing humans to these gods, but mostly they revered the nature. Or so the theory goes. It is this sense of reverence that is lacking in the modern humans, and who knows where it will lead to...
The question to ask is where did the reverence come from? And why don't we have it anymore? Maybe it was the fear that forced humans to make deities out of natural forces. They had no knowledge, no control, and were helpless against the forces that hurt them severely. If you are in this position, you to would try, as a last resort to placate the elements through rituals. It is really interesting to see that it is exactly like a relationship of a baby with his parents. No wonder we call it Mother Nature. Now we know better, and have a lot more power in terms of prediction and protection. We are no longer afraid, just prepared. It is a relationship of an adult with his parents. However, the childhood memories still linger on through years gone by. But like any grown adult, humanity has feeling of guilt about living away from the mother. What we don't realize is that Nature can be a very harsh and abusive mother. We stay away to protect ourselves, yet get together when we can, and pay our tribute. That's not a relationship to be ashamed of.
Yet we are learning to take good care of mother nature. We are cutting down on polution wherever we can, designing more eco-friendly cars, finding more and more energy from wind, sun and nuclear sources. We are potecting at least the cute creatures. But if you are sick and starving, and worried about your next meal, you can't be expected to give your mother the highest priority. You do what you can, and hope for a better future. One day we will find the best balance. Right now the problem of finding balance is not high priority for us. There are still millions of children dying, and billions living in desparate conditions. To improve their lives, we must keep the pace of progress up, so that they can grow strong enough, and their mind free enough to give mum a call once in a while.
The statements like this are not completely false. But how true are they? Rather more importantly, how useful are they? Mind you, they are not meant to be simple statements of fact. They certainly carry heavy moral judgment. We humans have been bad boys (girls are supposedly nicer in this respect). We have sinned, neglected our mother for our selfish interests. We have depleted her resources, cut down the beautiful trees, stopped worshipping the elements as we once did, we have become slaves of Satan.
The moral implecations are supposed to follow if the statements are true. But are they? Well, my feeling they seem like they have graduated from cliché-hood to truth, sometimes without passing the examination. Some are partially true, and some are absolutely false and even those that are true, do not lead to the serious moral implications. The picture is less of a flagrant sinner who raped mother earth, and more of a poor starved society that did not know better and was forced into using whatever they could to defend their existence. As humanity becomes more stable and powerful, it is undoing some of the harms, and ultimately will become as little intrusive as possible.
The trick is to remove the statements from emotionally and politically charged environment to dissecting table of sensibility and put them under the microscope of objective thinking. Make it less of a moral issue and take it to the realm of a problem that humanity needs to solve.
Are we going away from the Nature? Of course we are. Nature can be a very dangerous place. There are predators everywhere. Wild animals, snakes, various pests, harmful bacteria, viruses. These all take toll on human life - even the caveman tried to avoid them. Modern nature conservationists are not much different – they try to live in homes that are free of all the above. That's why you have never heard of "save cockroaches campaign" or "E-coli preservation act". The elements are not too nice either. It rains, snows, there are tornadoes. So we wear clothes, and make ourselves comfortable inside walls built of wood, stone, bricks and cement. To fit more people we build skyscrapers made with steel.
This much distance is good, I hope everyone will agree. So what other distance are we talking about? It is more of emotional distance that everyone worries about. We no longer revere nature as we used too. There were people who worshipped various natural deities, the Sun, the wind, the Rain. Sometimes they went a bit too far by sacrificing humans to these gods, but mostly they revered the nature. Or so the theory goes. It is this sense of reverence that is lacking in the modern humans, and who knows where it will lead to...
The question to ask is where did the reverence come from? And why don't we have it anymore? Maybe it was the fear that forced humans to make deities out of natural forces. They had no knowledge, no control, and were helpless against the forces that hurt them severely. If you are in this position, you to would try, as a last resort to placate the elements through rituals. It is really interesting to see that it is exactly like a relationship of a baby with his parents. No wonder we call it Mother Nature. Now we know better, and have a lot more power in terms of prediction and protection. We are no longer afraid, just prepared. It is a relationship of an adult with his parents. However, the childhood memories still linger on through years gone by. But like any grown adult, humanity has feeling of guilt about living away from the mother. What we don't realize is that Nature can be a very harsh and abusive mother. We stay away to protect ourselves, yet get together when we can, and pay our tribute. That's not a relationship to be ashamed of.
Yet we are learning to take good care of mother nature. We are cutting down on polution wherever we can, designing more eco-friendly cars, finding more and more energy from wind, sun and nuclear sources. We are potecting at least the cute creatures. But if you are sick and starving, and worried about your next meal, you can't be expected to give your mother the highest priority. You do what you can, and hope for a better future. One day we will find the best balance. Right now the problem of finding balance is not high priority for us. There are still millions of children dying, and billions living in desparate conditions. To improve their lives, we must keep the pace of progress up, so that they can grow strong enough, and their mind free enough to give mum a call once in a while.
Two positives make a negative
What is two plus two? If you use the mathematical terms, the answer is four. But we are not mathematicians, we like our language to be vague. We tend to use the word “plus” more like putting things together. It really depends on what those two are. And it depends on what you mean by putting them together. If you put the number 2 right next to another number 2, you might get 22. If you put 2 hydrogen atoms next to two oxygen atoms, you might get a tiny explosion and end up with a water molecule and a free oxygen radical. If you put two men together with two women, it might be a double date.
One way we commonly put two things together is when we say two different causes affect an outcome. The combination here is really important. For example, everyone knows that your health depends on how much you eat and how much you exercise. But the effects are not additive. If you exercise, and don't change your food intake, you will grow thinner. If you exercise a lot and don't each much, then you will lose muscles. If you don't exercise and increase food intake, you will get fat. However, if you exercise and increase food intake (reasonably), you will probably gain muscles. So the question is does exercise cause you to gain muscles or lose them? The answer is, it depends on how much you eat. Life is filled with such examples where something is good or not is determined by something else that is happening or not.
To add to the confusion, the yardsticks that we use are simplistic, and do not take these complexities in account. A typical measure for obesity is BMI – higher your weight for a given height, higher your BMI. The taller you are for the same weight, smaller your BMI. It is weight divided by height squared. Higher BMI usually means obesity. I said usually because the measure is simplistic. Here is an example. My friend was starting to put on weight. At 5'9" he was flabby and weighed 165 pound. That made his BMI = 26. His doctor warned against the weight gain and he seriously started exercising, and controlled his diet. After a while, he started liking what he saw in the mirror and decided to improve it. So he did a lot of weight training, with proteins. He built a fabulous body - almost no fat and bulging muscles. But the problem was that the amount of muscles he gained outweighed the fat he lost. He now weighs 170 pounds. His BMI is now larger - 26.5. If you did not look at him and simply looked at the two BMI numbers, you would say his health has deteriorated. But in reality he is fitter than ever.
This is what can happen when you have simplistic measure - you can have two positives (fat loss + muscle gain) appear as a negative (increased BMI). The word “appear” is very important. The appearance is only in the numbers. If you looked at his real appearance, it is a classic before and after case. But you are not his friend, you don't know him, the only information you get about him is from the BMI numbers. You can see him through a very narrow vision, like seeing through some special glasses. To make matters worse the glasses are curved - so they distort the picture. Two positives appear to make a negative.
Now imagine instead of my friends, a society. Almost any developing country might do. Let's say we know for a fact that the number of rapes that took place actually went down from say 1000 a year to 800 a year (let's assume the population was constant). Now as the rapes reduced, there was something else happening in the society - the taboos were breaking down, women were stronger and more independent, and their belief in the justice system improved - all very good things. As a result, more and more women came forward and were willing to report the heinous crime. Let's say the percentage increased drastically from 40% to 60%. Add the two good things together – decreased number of rapes, and higher reporting – and you will see the number of reported rapes going up from 400 to 480! That’s a 20% rise! Despite the fact that actual rapes dropped by 20% and reporting improved by 50%! What is happening here? And maybe if the police were more diligent, you will see convicted rapists going up from 200 to 300! That's a 50% increase in rapists! Oh my! What is the society coming to? Where are we going wrong?
Societies that are in transition often appear to have these "problems". But most of the times, these appearance are only on paper. Imagine hearing the following news: the proportion of marriages that end in divorce has gone up from 5% to 15%. Now is this bad in itself? A society that goes from rigid model of working husband and a housewife towards equality is going on the right path. A woman who is suffering abuse of a husband does not need to put up with him, because she can support herself, now can decide to end the suffering and opt for the lesser evil. Also the stigma that was once associated with divorce is reduced, or no longer there. We can look at the numbers and say, that maybe 10% marriages that did not end in divorce earlier, the parties involved suffered through because the alternatives were even worse. It is like suffering gangrene, because amputation was not an option.
Another example: you read that the number of people going to a psychiatrist to be treated for depression has increased from mere 1% to 6% in the last ten years. Does this mean we are more stressed as a society? Well, it might mean that more people are aware that the problem exists, that a solution exists, and more people can afford to use the solution, and it also may mean that the stigma associated with going to a psychiatrist has gone down significantly. All these are good factors, leading to a conclusion that is exactly opposite of the reality. The stress may not have increased, in fact the effect of the same stress has decreased because more of the worst affected people are seeking help.
There are countless other examples. More people wearing glasses does not mean the eyesight of humanity has worsened, it means exactly the opposite, more people are seeing things better now. But the theme is common, more people start accepting something as a problem, rather than hiding it, and more people solving the problem – these two good factors together makes the statistics to appear as the problem has increased.
One way we commonly put two things together is when we say two different causes affect an outcome. The combination here is really important. For example, everyone knows that your health depends on how much you eat and how much you exercise. But the effects are not additive. If you exercise, and don't change your food intake, you will grow thinner. If you exercise a lot and don't each much, then you will lose muscles. If you don't exercise and increase food intake, you will get fat. However, if you exercise and increase food intake (reasonably), you will probably gain muscles. So the question is does exercise cause you to gain muscles or lose them? The answer is, it depends on how much you eat. Life is filled with such examples where something is good or not is determined by something else that is happening or not.
To add to the confusion, the yardsticks that we use are simplistic, and do not take these complexities in account. A typical measure for obesity is BMI – higher your weight for a given height, higher your BMI. The taller you are for the same weight, smaller your BMI. It is weight divided by height squared. Higher BMI usually means obesity. I said usually because the measure is simplistic. Here is an example. My friend was starting to put on weight. At 5'9" he was flabby and weighed 165 pound. That made his BMI = 26. His doctor warned against the weight gain and he seriously started exercising, and controlled his diet. After a while, he started liking what he saw in the mirror and decided to improve it. So he did a lot of weight training, with proteins. He built a fabulous body - almost no fat and bulging muscles. But the problem was that the amount of muscles he gained outweighed the fat he lost. He now weighs 170 pounds. His BMI is now larger - 26.5. If you did not look at him and simply looked at the two BMI numbers, you would say his health has deteriorated. But in reality he is fitter than ever.
This is what can happen when you have simplistic measure - you can have two positives (fat loss + muscle gain) appear as a negative (increased BMI). The word “appear” is very important. The appearance is only in the numbers. If you looked at his real appearance, it is a classic before and after case. But you are not his friend, you don't know him, the only information you get about him is from the BMI numbers. You can see him through a very narrow vision, like seeing through some special glasses. To make matters worse the glasses are curved - so they distort the picture. Two positives appear to make a negative.
Now imagine instead of my friends, a society. Almost any developing country might do. Let's say we know for a fact that the number of rapes that took place actually went down from say 1000 a year to 800 a year (let's assume the population was constant). Now as the rapes reduced, there was something else happening in the society - the taboos were breaking down, women were stronger and more independent, and their belief in the justice system improved - all very good things. As a result, more and more women came forward and were willing to report the heinous crime. Let's say the percentage increased drastically from 40% to 60%. Add the two good things together – decreased number of rapes, and higher reporting – and you will see the number of reported rapes going up from 400 to 480! That’s a 20% rise! Despite the fact that actual rapes dropped by 20% and reporting improved by 50%! What is happening here? And maybe if the police were more diligent, you will see convicted rapists going up from 200 to 300! That's a 50% increase in rapists! Oh my! What is the society coming to? Where are we going wrong?
Societies that are in transition often appear to have these "problems". But most of the times, these appearance are only on paper. Imagine hearing the following news: the proportion of marriages that end in divorce has gone up from 5% to 15%. Now is this bad in itself? A society that goes from rigid model of working husband and a housewife towards equality is going on the right path. A woman who is suffering abuse of a husband does not need to put up with him, because she can support herself, now can decide to end the suffering and opt for the lesser evil. Also the stigma that was once associated with divorce is reduced, or no longer there. We can look at the numbers and say, that maybe 10% marriages that did not end in divorce earlier, the parties involved suffered through because the alternatives were even worse. It is like suffering gangrene, because amputation was not an option.
Another example: you read that the number of people going to a psychiatrist to be treated for depression has increased from mere 1% to 6% in the last ten years. Does this mean we are more stressed as a society? Well, it might mean that more people are aware that the problem exists, that a solution exists, and more people can afford to use the solution, and it also may mean that the stigma associated with going to a psychiatrist has gone down significantly. All these are good factors, leading to a conclusion that is exactly opposite of the reality. The stress may not have increased, in fact the effect of the same stress has decreased because more of the worst affected people are seeking help.
There are countless other examples. More people wearing glasses does not mean the eyesight of humanity has worsened, it means exactly the opposite, more people are seeing things better now. But the theme is common, more people start accepting something as a problem, rather than hiding it, and more people solving the problem – these two good factors together makes the statistics to appear as the problem has increased.
Absolute and Relative
Think of a large number. Did you? Good. Now is it really large? Large enough?
While reading the questions, you must have felt something amiss. A Large number of what? Large enough for what? There is no number that is large by itself - you can easily multiply it by a thousand, and presto, your original number becomes puny compared to it. There is no limit beyond which every number is a large number. You can talk about larger number or smaller number. These words are relative. The numbers themselves are absolute. The funny part is that a good relative comparison can be done for only absolute quantities. This is a very subtle point. It is like if you want to compare height, you want to look down and see if they are standing on the same ground. The word “large” lives in the gray area between absolute and relative. You have to ask large number of what? Ten million dollars can certainly be large amount of money, but the same number of raindrops might not even be registered. The word large challenges us by not only to make sure that the count is substantial, but it is significant. Sometimes this distinction is a little slippery.
Let’s look at the crime statistics in a hypothetical area. We read that in the last 10 years number of crimes went from 2000 a year to 2100 a year. You would say the situation has clearly deteriorated. The media will sound alarms, and theories of how exposure to television and free access to guns leads to increased violence would gain ground. But as any other numbers, they are relative. 2100 is larger than 2000 - any fifth grader can tell you that. The question is, do the numbers stand on their own, are they absolute? If you are smarter than a fifth grader, you would notice that in the same 10 years, the population of that area went from 2 million to 2.3 million. The crime rate has actually gone down, from 10 in 10000 people to about 9 in 10000. This is about 10% improvement. So the crime rate, is an absolute quantity that can compared from a society to society, from time to time. It is something like density. We usually say iron is heavier than water - what we really mean is iron is denser than water. If you took 10 pounds of iron and 10 pounds of water, they will weigh the same. Density is in some sense more absolute properties of the two materials - it is not relative to the amount.
The problem is that we usually talk about anything in numbers, and since numbers in themselves have the sense of absoluteness, it is easy to give that absoluteness to what they measure. But the most important thing to remember is this numbers are absolute only when they don’t have units. Once they acquire units, they lose that high priestly position, and become pedantic. One must look at the units to determine whether we can compare them without any problem.
When can we compare two numbers? The simple answer is that you need to do apple to apple comparison. All things being equal, 2100 crimes are more than 2000 crimes. However, whenever some of the things change, you need to take the change into account. In our example, the population changed. You can take this change out of the equation by dividing – like finding density. The reason for this is we want useful information by doing comparison. We want to know whether the crime situation in that particular area has improved over the given 10 year period. The assumption is that the number correctly represents the crime situation. This assumption is really a big assumption. In fact it incorporates multiple assumptions like
- The population did not change
- Reporting stayed exactly the same - (for every 5 crimes, 4 were actually reported)
- The crimes were similar in composition (there could be 1000 murders and 1000 petty theft 10 years ago, and now there are 300 murders and 1800 petty thefts)
Usually for a large enough population (there go the relative term again...) compositions remain similar over a short enough time. But if over the 10 years improved technology or improved awareness, and increased belief in justice system, let's say higher proportion of crimes got reported, then in fact the real crimes might be going down, but the reporting might increase. This is an irony of good things leading to bad perception.
I am not trying to say that nothing is comparable. You can do meaningful and useful comparisons. You just need to make sure we take the right relationships into account.
While reading the questions, you must have felt something amiss. A Large number of what? Large enough for what? There is no number that is large by itself - you can easily multiply it by a thousand, and presto, your original number becomes puny compared to it. There is no limit beyond which every number is a large number. You can talk about larger number or smaller number. These words are relative. The numbers themselves are absolute. The funny part is that a good relative comparison can be done for only absolute quantities. This is a very subtle point. It is like if you want to compare height, you want to look down and see if they are standing on the same ground. The word “large” lives in the gray area between absolute and relative. You have to ask large number of what? Ten million dollars can certainly be large amount of money, but the same number of raindrops might not even be registered. The word large challenges us by not only to make sure that the count is substantial, but it is significant. Sometimes this distinction is a little slippery.
Let’s look at the crime statistics in a hypothetical area. We read that in the last 10 years number of crimes went from 2000 a year to 2100 a year. You would say the situation has clearly deteriorated. The media will sound alarms, and theories of how exposure to television and free access to guns leads to increased violence would gain ground. But as any other numbers, they are relative. 2100 is larger than 2000 - any fifth grader can tell you that. The question is, do the numbers stand on their own, are they absolute? If you are smarter than a fifth grader, you would notice that in the same 10 years, the population of that area went from 2 million to 2.3 million. The crime rate has actually gone down, from 10 in 10000 people to about 9 in 10000. This is about 10% improvement. So the crime rate, is an absolute quantity that can compared from a society to society, from time to time. It is something like density. We usually say iron is heavier than water - what we really mean is iron is denser than water. If you took 10 pounds of iron and 10 pounds of water, they will weigh the same. Density is in some sense more absolute properties of the two materials - it is not relative to the amount.
The problem is that we usually talk about anything in numbers, and since numbers in themselves have the sense of absoluteness, it is easy to give that absoluteness to what they measure. But the most important thing to remember is this numbers are absolute only when they don’t have units. Once they acquire units, they lose that high priestly position, and become pedantic. One must look at the units to determine whether we can compare them without any problem.
When can we compare two numbers? The simple answer is that you need to do apple to apple comparison. All things being equal, 2100 crimes are more than 2000 crimes. However, whenever some of the things change, you need to take the change into account. In our example, the population changed. You can take this change out of the equation by dividing – like finding density. The reason for this is we want useful information by doing comparison. We want to know whether the crime situation in that particular area has improved over the given 10 year period. The assumption is that the number correctly represents the crime situation. This assumption is really a big assumption. In fact it incorporates multiple assumptions like
- The population did not change
- Reporting stayed exactly the same - (for every 5 crimes, 4 were actually reported)
- The crimes were similar in composition (there could be 1000 murders and 1000 petty theft 10 years ago, and now there are 300 murders and 1800 petty thefts)
Usually for a large enough population (there go the relative term again...) compositions remain similar over a short enough time. But if over the 10 years improved technology or improved awareness, and increased belief in justice system, let's say higher proportion of crimes got reported, then in fact the real crimes might be going down, but the reporting might increase. This is an irony of good things leading to bad perception.
I am not trying to say that nothing is comparable. You can do meaningful and useful comparisons. You just need to make sure we take the right relationships into account.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Rape capital of India
Times of India, a leading newspaper in India, published the following article about the recent rise in rape cases.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/330_rape_assault_cases_in_Delhi_in_08/articleshow/2994429.cms
581 rape cases in 2007? Just from one city? Surely, this is a sign of moral fiber of the society breaking down! How can we say we are making progress when we see numbers like this?
No way how you look at it, rape is a henious crime. It traumatizes an innocent human being, usually a woman or a young girl. The effects of rape last much longer than the event itself, the scars rarely heal. I am a man and have never been raped, so it is impossible to imagine for me how dreadful it is. So when I talk about the issue, it is purely from the statistical point of view. The contention is that if you have fewer number of henious crimes, that's the sign of progress and civilization. 581 is a huge number. The ideal number is ZERO. I don't want to belittle the individuals involved, and the trauma they went through. But before we conclude that the society is going down the drain, we must ask what were the conditions like earlier. After all progress means better than what was earlier, right?
The biggest reason the numbers you hear nowadays are numbers that are unheard of, is because of the populations involved. We are mentally capable of tracking, imagining people in 10's or at the most 100's. A typical village where everyone knew (almost) everyone else has a size of 100 to 1000. Beyond that we really cannot grasp. When the numbers starts going above 10000, we don't have grasp of what they mean.
Population of Delhi is 14 million on the lower estimates, and 21 million on the higher estimate. Of course, it depends on which parts you include and when you measured. If we take the lower number for conservative estimates, 581 rapes means 1 rape per year in 24,000 people. It is like saying in a village of 1000 people, 1 rape in 24 years. Now we don't have any data for villages in earlier times. But try to imagine yourself living in a village, and hearing statistics about the neighboring village 500 people "you know, in the last 48 years, there have been 1 rape. It's a horrible situation!" What would you say? Would you be as shocked as the Delhi statistics? Of course not. But this is exactly what's happening in Delhi - there are just thousands of villages put together. The consolidation of the statistics gives you a number that is large in absolute sense.
Now some people will say that the number 581 represents just the reported cases, there must be thousands that get hushed up. I agree wholeheartedly. The society has taboos associated with the rape, and punishes the victim. But this has been going on for centuries. In fact there are more and more women now who can come forward now and name the perpetrator, than earlier. Women are lot stronger than they used to be a 100 years ago - they are more educated, more independent, they earn more. Fewer of them have to succumb to the family pressure to hide it and live with the pain.
The process of adding up all the numbers for a crowded city makes a number appear staggering. This did not happen when we knew only about what is happening in our village. In a sense, this is a good thing, because it raises awareness of the population, and forces the authorities to take action. And the actions get taken for long term improvement. It is a slow process, but it does work. Some as a direct result of a law or an initiative (like the seat belt laws reducing the number of deaths per passenger mile). Some changes happen as a result of general improvements in education, health, communicaiton, technology etc. The slow changes are difficult to see, and we start taking them for granted. But they are there.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/330_rape_assault_cases_in_Delhi_in_08/articleshow/2994429.cms
581 rape cases in 2007? Just from one city? Surely, this is a sign of moral fiber of the society breaking down! How can we say we are making progress when we see numbers like this?
No way how you look at it, rape is a henious crime. It traumatizes an innocent human being, usually a woman or a young girl. The effects of rape last much longer than the event itself, the scars rarely heal. I am a man and have never been raped, so it is impossible to imagine for me how dreadful it is. So when I talk about the issue, it is purely from the statistical point of view. The contention is that if you have fewer number of henious crimes, that's the sign of progress and civilization. 581 is a huge number. The ideal number is ZERO. I don't want to belittle the individuals involved, and the trauma they went through. But before we conclude that the society is going down the drain, we must ask what were the conditions like earlier. After all progress means better than what was earlier, right?
The biggest reason the numbers you hear nowadays are numbers that are unheard of, is because of the populations involved. We are mentally capable of tracking, imagining people in 10's or at the most 100's. A typical village where everyone knew (almost) everyone else has a size of 100 to 1000. Beyond that we really cannot grasp. When the numbers starts going above 10000, we don't have grasp of what they mean.
Population of Delhi is 14 million on the lower estimates, and 21 million on the higher estimate. Of course, it depends on which parts you include and when you measured. If we take the lower number for conservative estimates, 581 rapes means 1 rape per year in 24,000 people. It is like saying in a village of 1000 people, 1 rape in 24 years. Now we don't have any data for villages in earlier times. But try to imagine yourself living in a village, and hearing statistics about the neighboring village 500 people "you know, in the last 48 years, there have been 1 rape. It's a horrible situation!" What would you say? Would you be as shocked as the Delhi statistics? Of course not. But this is exactly what's happening in Delhi - there are just thousands of villages put together. The consolidation of the statistics gives you a number that is large in absolute sense.
Now some people will say that the number 581 represents just the reported cases, there must be thousands that get hushed up. I agree wholeheartedly. The society has taboos associated with the rape, and punishes the victim. But this has been going on for centuries. In fact there are more and more women now who can come forward now and name the perpetrator, than earlier. Women are lot stronger than they used to be a 100 years ago - they are more educated, more independent, they earn more. Fewer of them have to succumb to the family pressure to hide it and live with the pain.
The process of adding up all the numbers for a crowded city makes a number appear staggering. This did not happen when we knew only about what is happening in our village. In a sense, this is a good thing, because it raises awareness of the population, and forces the authorities to take action. And the actions get taken for long term improvement. It is a slow process, but it does work. Some as a direct result of a law or an initiative (like the seat belt laws reducing the number of deaths per passenger mile). Some changes happen as a result of general improvements in education, health, communicaiton, technology etc. The slow changes are difficult to see, and we start taking them for granted. But they are there.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
I, Human
What defines a human being? What's so special about us? What are we proud of? What do we cherish? What is it that separates us from the other animals?
If I were forced to give a single word answer to the questions, I would say it is "mind". Most living beings have brains, some have very rudimentary languages, some basic emotions... The closest rivals to humans are chimps and dolphins. They do pretty okay by their standards, but compared to humans, the difference between minds is huge. It is like comparing a bicycle to a Ferrari.
The fact that the mind is the most important thing for humans has not escaped the human intellect. The history of human progress is that of the freedom of mind.
For the millennia that people have occupied this planet, the struggle has been to free the body first. Mind cannot survive without the body. And making the fragile human body last against the elements was not easy.
The human societies did what poor men with no savings and low income does. They used the precious mind power to survive. And some of them saved the power, starving themselves, and invested it. Some of these investments paid off, some simply died out. But one by one the groups that survived had more excess mind power floating around, and more learning as the generations went by. They say that making the first million is the most difficult one. The first major breakthroughs were difficult, and it took thousands of years to reach the agricultural society stage that really gave a big stability, like fertile soile for the available mind power to blossom.
The recent BCs and early ADs humans transformed themselves from exerters of physical powers to controllers of physical power. The first obvious choice to replace human muscle power were animals. As the time went by the power needs of humans increased, and they started garnering the power from water, air, steam, coal, oil. They started machines that did the mindless, non-creative actions nobody really wanted to do. By the end of the 20th century, humans are essentially not doing any physical labor. This does not mean there aren't people who do hard labor. What it means is human being are using 99% of the energy needed sources other than human muscle.
If I were forced to give a single word answer to the questions, I would say it is "mind". Most living beings have brains, some have very rudimentary languages, some basic emotions... The closest rivals to humans are chimps and dolphins. They do pretty okay by their standards, but compared to humans, the difference between minds is huge. It is like comparing a bicycle to a Ferrari.
The fact that the mind is the most important thing for humans has not escaped the human intellect. The history of human progress is that of the freedom of mind.
For the millennia that people have occupied this planet, the struggle has been to free the body first. Mind cannot survive without the body. And making the fragile human body last against the elements was not easy.
The human societies did what poor men with no savings and low income does. They used the precious mind power to survive. And some of them saved the power, starving themselves, and invested it. Some of these investments paid off, some simply died out. But one by one the groups that survived had more excess mind power floating around, and more learning as the generations went by. They say that making the first million is the most difficult one. The first major breakthroughs were difficult, and it took thousands of years to reach the agricultural society stage that really gave a big stability, like fertile soile for the available mind power to blossom.
The recent BCs and early ADs humans transformed themselves from exerters of physical powers to controllers of physical power. The first obvious choice to replace human muscle power were animals. As the time went by the power needs of humans increased, and they started garnering the power from water, air, steam, coal, oil. They started machines that did the mindless, non-creative actions nobody really wanted to do. By the end of the 20th century, humans are essentially not doing any physical labor. This does not mean there aren't people who do hard labor. What it means is human being are using 99% of the energy needed sources other than human muscle.
What happened to the muscle power in the last three centuries, is now happening to the brain power. There have always been boring, tedius jobs that were essentially mindless. Writing things down, copying, adding numbers, multiplying, keeping accounts... This is what a lot "learned" men did a century ago. Now these lower level tasks are done by computers. There is more and more mind power liberated to do creative work.
There will come one day when humans will "work" only when they want to. And the work will involve doing something constructive, something beutiful, something that gives pleasure. There will be more time to connect with other people, and the humans will. The barriers that separate people will start to vanish - cultural biases, racial hatred, will diminish as people become more educated and start valuing individuall lives lot more than countries and religions. Most will live past 100 years, and live healthier, richer lives. Most will get a decent education, get a chance to explore the world around them, and contribute to the knowledge.
This is what all the progress is for. And we are on track to achieve it in not so distant future.
I am a human being, and proud of my race.
Monday, April 21, 2008
The CEO of Earth
"It's small step for one man, but a giant stride for mankind". The first step on the moon definitely was an amazing moment, a tip of the achievement of a civilization. A highlight of the 20th century. But was the humanity splurging its resources on moon, and forgetting the masses? Many people think so - and constantly worry that the world is going down the drain.
When I was kid, we always had to write essays or prepare for elocution competitions with topics like "If I became Prime Minister of India". The simplistic view that everyone was supposed to take, rang hollow even then. "I will make food free for everyone, and help poor". Of course, the modern day politicians' promises aren't much different. Only as I grew older, I started realizing how complex the problem is for any ruler, let alone a democratic leader.
But let me invite you to keep the complexity aside and think with the same youthful exuberance and optimism. Imagine, what you would do if you were the ruler of the world in the year 1900. (the reason for the year 1900 is that we can compare what you would do against what actually happened) Or better still imagine that the earth was a corporation, every human being an equal shareholder, the bottom line is combined happiness of everyone - and you are the CEO of this corporation, again, in the year 1900. The board of directors is occupied by people like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Jesus Christ, Gautam Buddha... all the good people you can think of, even though they are anachronists. You can hire and fire anyone.
What will you do? Give this quesiton a serious thought before you read any further.
Well, you will probably hire some good sociologists, economists and known humanatarians (if the board of directors is not enough!) and find out where we are. The picture they paint will be bleak. There is suffering all across, the average life expectancy is in 30s. There is no equality between men and women. Literacy % can be counted on both hands. Two thirds of the world population is enslaved by colonizing powers, famines and deseases are killing people at will by the millions. People are dying not just because of the lack of medicines, but because the lack of knowledge that a bit of sugar and salt added to water will save lives. Almost every woman sees four of her children die prematurely - and can hardly do anything beyond giving 6 to 7 births in her lifetime. If you tried to simplify the problems, it will be ill health, poverty and ignorance.
And you don't just want a short term solution. You want a long term solution. Something that will grow. And the other constraint is that you need to do this through the people.
But the situation is not all bad. You have all knowledge of centuries behind you. When Buddha says to you from the board of directors that all human suffering is through strife, you can say back to him that true, but the malaria virus that kills millions of children has nothing to do with the strife. Let's remove the external problems and then deal with the strife.
The more you look at the macroeconomic picture, you will realize that increasing happiness is a tall task. The only thing you can do is reduce the miseries, losses of lives and the hardship; give them basic education so that they can enlighten themselves, and give them longer life and freedom so that they can find their own happiness and contribute to others'.
The question actually is not how you would go about doing this, or how quickly you will be able to achieve it, but what will you try to achieve. The four things you will concentrate on and measure as your bottom line will probably be
1. average life span
2. average number of years of formal education
3. average wealth with not to unreasonable distribution
4. % people under democracy
If the world made progress on these major fronts you would have saved billions of lives, made each life stronger for longer, and given everyone more material wealth to add stability and fuel for pursuit of happiness.
You were not the CEO of the world in the 20th century. Mostly corrupt and power hungry politicians ruled through rumbling beurocracies all over the world. And yet through all this mess, humanity made amazing strides over all 4 key measures. We reached the moon too - but that's just gravy.
When I was kid, we always had to write essays or prepare for elocution competitions with topics like "If I became Prime Minister of India". The simplistic view that everyone was supposed to take, rang hollow even then. "I will make food free for everyone, and help poor". Of course, the modern day politicians' promises aren't much different. Only as I grew older, I started realizing how complex the problem is for any ruler, let alone a democratic leader.
But let me invite you to keep the complexity aside and think with the same youthful exuberance and optimism. Imagine, what you would do if you were the ruler of the world in the year 1900. (the reason for the year 1900 is that we can compare what you would do against what actually happened) Or better still imagine that the earth was a corporation, every human being an equal shareholder, the bottom line is combined happiness of everyone - and you are the CEO of this corporation, again, in the year 1900. The board of directors is occupied by people like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Jesus Christ, Gautam Buddha... all the good people you can think of, even though they are anachronists. You can hire and fire anyone.
What will you do? Give this quesiton a serious thought before you read any further.
Well, you will probably hire some good sociologists, economists and known humanatarians (if the board of directors is not enough!) and find out where we are. The picture they paint will be bleak. There is suffering all across, the average life expectancy is in 30s. There is no equality between men and women. Literacy % can be counted on both hands. Two thirds of the world population is enslaved by colonizing powers, famines and deseases are killing people at will by the millions. People are dying not just because of the lack of medicines, but because the lack of knowledge that a bit of sugar and salt added to water will save lives. Almost every woman sees four of her children die prematurely - and can hardly do anything beyond giving 6 to 7 births in her lifetime. If you tried to simplify the problems, it will be ill health, poverty and ignorance.
And you don't just want a short term solution. You want a long term solution. Something that will grow. And the other constraint is that you need to do this through the people.
But the situation is not all bad. You have all knowledge of centuries behind you. When Buddha says to you from the board of directors that all human suffering is through strife, you can say back to him that true, but the malaria virus that kills millions of children has nothing to do with the strife. Let's remove the external problems and then deal with the strife.
The more you look at the macroeconomic picture, you will realize that increasing happiness is a tall task. The only thing you can do is reduce the miseries, losses of lives and the hardship; give them basic education so that they can enlighten themselves, and give them longer life and freedom so that they can find their own happiness and contribute to others'.
The question actually is not how you would go about doing this, or how quickly you will be able to achieve it, but what will you try to achieve. The four things you will concentrate on and measure as your bottom line will probably be
1. average life span
2. average number of years of formal education
3. average wealth with not to unreasonable distribution
4. % people under democracy
If the world made progress on these major fronts you would have saved billions of lives, made each life stronger for longer, and given everyone more material wealth to add stability and fuel for pursuit of happiness.
You were not the CEO of the world in the 20th century. Mostly corrupt and power hungry politicians ruled through rumbling beurocracies all over the world. And yet through all this mess, humanity made amazing strides over all 4 key measures. We reached the moon too - but that's just gravy.
Friday, April 18, 2008
The S Curve
Imagine setting fire to a very large field of dry grass. The shape of the field does not matter too much as long as you start small fires in different locations. Initially the small fires are burning, and start consuming the grass right next to it. The beginning is a little slow, because the perimeter of the fire is very small. But as the fire grows, the rate at which it starts burning increases, because there is more and more fuel available at the edge - as the small circles spread into larger ones. After a point when half or more of the grass is burned out, the fire starts slowing down. Burning continues, but the rates start becoming smaller. This happens because different circles merge, and the perimeter actually decreases. What starts out with islands of fire, becomes islands of grass. These islands shrink further and further, reducing the strength of the fire. Ultimately everything dies down when the whole field burns out.
If you took a picture of the fire at different times, and measured the area burned down, first few intervals will show slow rise. However, the growth acceslerate rapidly, almost exponentially till the halfway point. At halfway point, the rate of rise is steep, and in the later half when most of the field has burned down, the rate of rise is slow. This is the classic S curve.
Why is the S curve important? Well, to begin with, it applies to population. Population, too increases like the bushfire to increase rapidly at first and then settle down. Technically speaking the S curve may not exactly describe the human population, because unlike the fire example with the fixed space conditions by which the human population increases, and the causes by which it ceases to increase are not constant. For example, we may discover another planet on which to grow human race in future. Or the sociological changes will actually cause the population to decrease. Nevertheless, conceptually the curve is still valid. For a fairly foreseeable future - the next 100 years or so - we can safely assume that the population will plataue at around 9 to 10 billion.
The exact number is not really important. But what it tells us is that the doomsday scenarios that were common in 1970s about the population explosion were obviously incorrect. Those looked at the halfway point, fast burning, rapidly rising S curve, and blindly interpolated to go for some years. The math was not incorrect, it never is for typical scaremonger statistics. The error was in assumptions that the population growth will continue at the same vigorous rates.
The other extremely important aspect of S curves is that it approximates how a particular life improvement spreads through the world. The bottom part of the S curve represents the initial period of very low pervailance and slow growth. Typically in this period a particular item or freedom is available to only the cream of the society. The growth is slow, but it picks up. The second part is when the spread is very rapid, and in no time most of the society gets that item. This is the period when the item changes from luxury available to only the top 5 to 10% to a necessity that eventually 90% people possess. The last bit is little difficult, again because of various reasons. So sometimes the last 10% takes as much time as covering the middle 80%. But eventually almost everyone has it and the world starts taking it for granted.
If you take the "safty from predetors" like lions, tigers, hyenas etc as your variable and charted what percentage of population had this "luxury" you will see a similar trend. The stone age people and their ancestors did not have this luxury. Very few people were protected because they either were rulers of tribes could afford to live protected by others who faced the risk. As the civilization spread through, and the agricultural societies thrived, the villages grew (just like bushfires). The inner people were protected. Now we have completed the S curve (almost) and less than 1% are actually exposed to it. We have forgotten that it was a problem once, and that it killed large number of people every year.
Another example is the spread of the cellphone. This can be illustrated with numbers. [need a plot]. Before 1900, the conept just wasn't there beyond somebody's imagination. I am sure people must have sat around a campfires and wondered what wonderful life it would be if everyone could talk to their dear ones, friends at a press of a button, no matter where they were. Probably they had a good laugh about it and forgot. But the dream lived on and now it's reality. In late 80's there were very few people who could afford car phones or new fangled mobile phones that weighed a ton. That was the less than 1% phase. As of now, there are around 3 billion (need to confirm the numbers) equivalent to about 60% of the population that could use cell phones. We have quickly reached from a mobile phone becoming a necessity from extreme luxury. And only a 100 years ago it was science fiction.
The S curve for cell phone population is much steeper than the S curve for the safty from predators. It took a few thousand years for human beings to achieve the second, whereas it will take only 50 odd years for the cell phone being available to every human being. This is a new feature of modern times, the progress takes place right under our noses. The reaction time is fast. On the face of it, the difference looks like the difference between sociological change to a technological change. I personally have never taken much liking to lables. Ultimately they are the structures that get formed either to thwart predators, or transmit phone signals. Nevertheless, by the 20th century there have been enough changes, so that a thing like cellphone can be invented, and more importantly spread through amazingly quickly. So if you draw a meta S curve, we are on the rise - long time ago all S curves were very slow, now they are fast.
The progress is spreading like a wild fire...
If you took a picture of the fire at different times, and measured the area burned down, first few intervals will show slow rise. However, the growth acceslerate rapidly, almost exponentially till the halfway point. At halfway point, the rate of rise is steep, and in the later half when most of the field has burned down, the rate of rise is slow. This is the classic S curve.
Why is the S curve important? Well, to begin with, it applies to population. Population, too increases like the bushfire to increase rapidly at first and then settle down. Technically speaking the S curve may not exactly describe the human population, because unlike the fire example with the fixed space conditions by which the human population increases, and the causes by which it ceases to increase are not constant. For example, we may discover another planet on which to grow human race in future. Or the sociological changes will actually cause the population to decrease. Nevertheless, conceptually the curve is still valid. For a fairly foreseeable future - the next 100 years or so - we can safely assume that the population will plataue at around 9 to 10 billion.
The exact number is not really important. But what it tells us is that the doomsday scenarios that were common in 1970s about the population explosion were obviously incorrect. Those looked at the halfway point, fast burning, rapidly rising S curve, and blindly interpolated to go for some years. The math was not incorrect, it never is for typical scaremonger statistics. The error was in assumptions that the population growth will continue at the same vigorous rates.
The other extremely important aspect of S curves is that it approximates how a particular life improvement spreads through the world. The bottom part of the S curve represents the initial period of very low pervailance and slow growth. Typically in this period a particular item or freedom is available to only the cream of the society. The growth is slow, but it picks up. The second part is when the spread is very rapid, and in no time most of the society gets that item. This is the period when the item changes from luxury available to only the top 5 to 10% to a necessity that eventually 90% people possess. The last bit is little difficult, again because of various reasons. So sometimes the last 10% takes as much time as covering the middle 80%. But eventually almost everyone has it and the world starts taking it for granted.
If you take the "safty from predetors" like lions, tigers, hyenas etc as your variable and charted what percentage of population had this "luxury" you will see a similar trend. The stone age people and their ancestors did not have this luxury. Very few people were protected because they either were rulers of tribes could afford to live protected by others who faced the risk. As the civilization spread through, and the agricultural societies thrived, the villages grew (just like bushfires). The inner people were protected. Now we have completed the S curve (almost) and less than 1% are actually exposed to it. We have forgotten that it was a problem once, and that it killed large number of people every year.
Another example is the spread of the cellphone. This can be illustrated with numbers. [need a plot]. Before 1900, the conept just wasn't there beyond somebody's imagination. I am sure people must have sat around a campfires and wondered what wonderful life it would be if everyone could talk to their dear ones, friends at a press of a button, no matter where they were. Probably they had a good laugh about it and forgot. But the dream lived on and now it's reality. In late 80's there were very few people who could afford car phones or new fangled mobile phones that weighed a ton. That was the less than 1% phase. As of now, there are around 3 billion (need to confirm the numbers) equivalent to about 60% of the population that could use cell phones. We have quickly reached from a mobile phone becoming a necessity from extreme luxury. And only a 100 years ago it was science fiction.
The S curve for cell phone population is much steeper than the S curve for the safty from predators. It took a few thousand years for human beings to achieve the second, whereas it will take only 50 odd years for the cell phone being available to every human being. This is a new feature of modern times, the progress takes place right under our noses. The reaction time is fast. On the face of it, the difference looks like the difference between sociological change to a technological change. I personally have never taken much liking to lables. Ultimately they are the structures that get formed either to thwart predators, or transmit phone signals. Nevertheless, by the 20th century there have been enough changes, so that a thing like cellphone can be invented, and more importantly spread through amazingly quickly. So if you draw a meta S curve, we are on the rise - long time ago all S curves were very slow, now they are fast.
The progress is spreading like a wild fire...
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The invisible riches
Everyone knows the three monkies - see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil. But the reality is exactly opposite - we keep our eyes and ears open to find if there is any evil around, we tell about it to warn others, and that's how we have survived.
Harsh forces of evolution have taught us human being to be always vigilant. We are always on the lookout lest some predator be lurking behind the bushes or snakes under the stone. So every time we hear a suspecious movement, see something wrong we go into the fight or flight mode. We yearn to see it, crowd around to hear it, worry about it and spread the message by talking about it. The media of course makes there living by utilizing these innate tendancies.
The upshot of all this is that we are always more fine tuned to the visible, the tangible and the dangerous. Train crashes, explosions, terrorist attacks - all catch our eye, numb our minds and scare us. They stay with us in our memory - we remember where we were, how we heard it, proudly tell if we saw it. These add up in our mind to make a picture of a bleak and scary world.
The bad things that did not happen (and used to happen) on the other hand are invisible. You can't send a camera crew to a house, with the reporter saying "Neither of Mr. Smith's two children has died in the last twenty eight years, and he might become a grandfather soon - which would have been highly probable had he lived 20,000 years ago. Yey for them."
The point is that disaster is tangible. You can point a finger to a dead body. You can show the burned down bus. You can view the fallen buildings. And you can parade martyrs. Everyone knows that at least a few million lives were saved by penicilin, it is difficult to pinpoint - which millions? Who exactly? So there is no cheer for those millions of lives, but the mourning for ten deaths in shooting by a madman? It's on!
Let's take a very recent example. In United States, car occupant deaths have been almost constant at 35000 a year for 15 years between 1983 to 1998. This does not sound like progress - but during that time more and more states passed and enforced seat belt laws. The population increased, the travel increased even more than the population did. So if there was no progress, that means there should be about 52,000 deaths a year by now. But the laws, technology, better roads, and many other factors combined to reduce the numer of deaths per passenger mile. So a back of the envelope calcuation tells us that about 120,000 lives were saved. Do you know if you are one of them? Can you imagine those 120,000 families that did not go through devastation? There is no way to know who, but someone has to be it. (The following paper talks about gory details of each aspect of the law's effect)
http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/341.pdf
And I gave these numbers because the data was easily available and quantifiable. That's the other problem, the data needs a fair amount of digging. But these numbers pale in comparison to the number of children saved by malnutrion over the last 100 year. That number is in billions. Do you know how many of them have become great artists, great scientists, or plain old fashioned good kids who took care of there parents, raised good kids themselves and did the hard work to make society prosper? (The health and life improvements are such a huge part of the world getting better, it deserves few articles in its own right.) Each and every one of us has benefitted from their contributions, every one of us lives in a world that is better because it did not suffer those deaths.
Maybe the monkies that have evolved into human beings aught to try hard to see, hear and talk about the invisible treasures that we take so much for granted, that we don't even know about it.
Harsh forces of evolution have taught us human being to be always vigilant. We are always on the lookout lest some predator be lurking behind the bushes or snakes under the stone. So every time we hear a suspecious movement, see something wrong we go into the fight or flight mode. We yearn to see it, crowd around to hear it, worry about it and spread the message by talking about it. The media of course makes there living by utilizing these innate tendancies.
The upshot of all this is that we are always more fine tuned to the visible, the tangible and the dangerous. Train crashes, explosions, terrorist attacks - all catch our eye, numb our minds and scare us. They stay with us in our memory - we remember where we were, how we heard it, proudly tell if we saw it. These add up in our mind to make a picture of a bleak and scary world.
The bad things that did not happen (and used to happen) on the other hand are invisible. You can't send a camera crew to a house, with the reporter saying "Neither of Mr. Smith's two children has died in the last twenty eight years, and he might become a grandfather soon - which would have been highly probable had he lived 20,000 years ago. Yey for them."
The point is that disaster is tangible. You can point a finger to a dead body. You can show the burned down bus. You can view the fallen buildings. And you can parade martyrs. Everyone knows that at least a few million lives were saved by penicilin, it is difficult to pinpoint - which millions? Who exactly? So there is no cheer for those millions of lives, but the mourning for ten deaths in shooting by a madman? It's on!
Let's take a very recent example. In United States, car occupant deaths have been almost constant at 35000 a year for 15 years between 1983 to 1998. This does not sound like progress - but during that time more and more states passed and enforced seat belt laws. The population increased, the travel increased even more than the population did. So if there was no progress, that means there should be about 52,000 deaths a year by now. But the laws, technology, better roads, and many other factors combined to reduce the numer of deaths per passenger mile. So a back of the envelope calcuation tells us that about 120,000 lives were saved. Do you know if you are one of them? Can you imagine those 120,000 families that did not go through devastation? There is no way to know who, but someone has to be it. (The following paper talks about gory details of each aspect of the law's effect)
http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/341.pdf
And I gave these numbers because the data was easily available and quantifiable. That's the other problem, the data needs a fair amount of digging. But these numbers pale in comparison to the number of children saved by malnutrion over the last 100 year. That number is in billions. Do you know how many of them have become great artists, great scientists, or plain old fashioned good kids who took care of there parents, raised good kids themselves and did the hard work to make society prosper? (The health and life improvements are such a huge part of the world getting better, it deserves few articles in its own right.) Each and every one of us has benefitted from their contributions, every one of us lives in a world that is better because it did not suffer those deaths.
Maybe the monkies that have evolved into human beings aught to try hard to see, hear and talk about the invisible treasures that we take so much for granted, that we don't even know about it.
Monday, April 14, 2008
9 Billion Minds? What's that?
The name of the blog is based on the classic A. C. Clarke story "Nine Billion names of God". The story starts with a description of a group of monks in Himalayas, who are trying to write out all the names of their god - 9 billion of them. It ends up discussing the meaning of life and the purpose of existance. I highly recommend it.
Clarke's story tries to talk about the purpose of existance and suggests that the answer of why we are may not seem obvious, or rational. In the hindsight it may seem so but the current understanding and perception might be misleading. In this blog I want to explore the purpose of what we broadly call "progress". 9 billion minds is a short answer to the question "why progress? and progress towards what?"
By a curious coincidence, the world population too will settle at somewhere close to 9 billion in the late 21st century. As we become more technologically advance we will be able to support more and more people to live without any physical or animal pains. Our struggles will be mental alone.
If you watch the news, read the papers, you will find people strongly believing that there is no progress at all - in fact things are getting worse. They believe that the society is going down the drain. Fortunately, they are wrong. Utterly and completely wrong. Their views are not based on data, but more on perceptions, insticts and just plain old nostalgia that grips middle aged people like a mental virus.
In these pages, I want to address different aspect of this theme. Some articles may be debunking the existing misnomers about progress, some would be about global trends, some may deal with individuals, some will deal with how media lives by portraying bleak and sensational picture of the world.
Clarke's story tries to talk about the purpose of existance and suggests that the answer of why we are may not seem obvious, or rational. In the hindsight it may seem so but the current understanding and perception might be misleading. In this blog I want to explore the purpose of what we broadly call "progress". 9 billion minds is a short answer to the question "why progress? and progress towards what?"
By a curious coincidence, the world population too will settle at somewhere close to 9 billion in the late 21st century. As we become more technologically advance we will be able to support more and more people to live without any physical or animal pains. Our struggles will be mental alone.
If you watch the news, read the papers, you will find people strongly believing that there is no progress at all - in fact things are getting worse. They believe that the society is going down the drain. Fortunately, they are wrong. Utterly and completely wrong. Their views are not based on data, but more on perceptions, insticts and just plain old nostalgia that grips middle aged people like a mental virus.
In these pages, I want to address different aspect of this theme. Some articles may be debunking the existing misnomers about progress, some would be about global trends, some may deal with individuals, some will deal with how media lives by portraying bleak and sensational picture of the world.
The thinking planet
What a difference a few billion years make!
The Earth was a hot lump of spinning mass made of dust, land, water, lava and a bunch of toxic gases. Volcanoes spewed angry heat, the skies rained on a land mass that shifted and redefined itself, and the seas undulated to the rhythem of day and night. There were countless millenia of turmoil and other countless millenia of quiet period where nothing happened out of ordinary. Chaos reigned. In the chaos too, there was beauty - but no eyes to see it. No trees lined the distant horizons. The glorious sunsets of a younger sun went unseen, the thunderous storms unheard. It was barren and unappreciated world.
And look it now. I mean just look at it. It is filled with millions of different kind of animals, plants, fish, and of course humans. There are eyes that absorb the vista, ears that listen intently, bodies that touch the world and each other. There is life - throbbing, pulsating, warm life.
As the night of lifelessness ended and a day of living began to dawn, the blindly reproducers combined, formed colonies of cells, became more and more aware. It was like very slowly opening eyes to first let in just tiny sliver of light and then opening it some more to vaguely see outlines, and later to well defined shapes and forms. The intelligence developed from all the way to ameoba to monkeys to humans. Only recently has the sun of awareness has moved its head above the horizon, and grown from a sliver to a bright red globe. The journey was not easy.
Mankind has been around for thousands of years, fully gifted with the brains that can think and hence conclude they exist. But a vast majority were trouble by problems of existence and died before they could be bothered with existantial angst. It is only recently - in the last 100 years or so that they have begun the ascent that did justice to their mental faculties. The journey is not over yet. The sun has come up - and will become brighter. This sun is not the one that sets. On the contrary, it will become brighter and yet genter and kinder.
It was Marx's dream to free the humanity from animal suffering. The need for survival, pressure of earning tomorrow's bread, the famine, the untimely deaths - human minds are too precious for all these. Their sufferings need to be that of higher quality - the lover's sorrow, the yogi's search, the dreamer's angst.
Today there are more and more people who are close to this dream. And one day the whole world will be free of strife. We are getting there, albeit slowly. The planet that began 3 billion odd years ago as a lifeless planet, continued till the last few millenia as filled with bodies with life, will one day be teeming with minds.
The journey is going on, let's enjoy the ride.
The Earth was a hot lump of spinning mass made of dust, land, water, lava and a bunch of toxic gases. Volcanoes spewed angry heat, the skies rained on a land mass that shifted and redefined itself, and the seas undulated to the rhythem of day and night. There were countless millenia of turmoil and other countless millenia of quiet period where nothing happened out of ordinary. Chaos reigned. In the chaos too, there was beauty - but no eyes to see it. No trees lined the distant horizons. The glorious sunsets of a younger sun went unseen, the thunderous storms unheard. It was barren and unappreciated world.
And look it now. I mean just look at it. It is filled with millions of different kind of animals, plants, fish, and of course humans. There are eyes that absorb the vista, ears that listen intently, bodies that touch the world and each other. There is life - throbbing, pulsating, warm life.
As the night of lifelessness ended and a day of living began to dawn, the blindly reproducers combined, formed colonies of cells, became more and more aware. It was like very slowly opening eyes to first let in just tiny sliver of light and then opening it some more to vaguely see outlines, and later to well defined shapes and forms. The intelligence developed from all the way to ameoba to monkeys to humans. Only recently has the sun of awareness has moved its head above the horizon, and grown from a sliver to a bright red globe. The journey was not easy.
Mankind has been around for thousands of years, fully gifted with the brains that can think and hence conclude they exist. But a vast majority were trouble by problems of existence and died before they could be bothered with existantial angst. It is only recently - in the last 100 years or so that they have begun the ascent that did justice to their mental faculties. The journey is not over yet. The sun has come up - and will become brighter. This sun is not the one that sets. On the contrary, it will become brighter and yet genter and kinder.
It was Marx's dream to free the humanity from animal suffering. The need for survival, pressure of earning tomorrow's bread, the famine, the untimely deaths - human minds are too precious for all these. Their sufferings need to be that of higher quality - the lover's sorrow, the yogi's search, the dreamer's angst.
Today there are more and more people who are close to this dream. And one day the whole world will be free of strife. We are getting there, albeit slowly. The planet that began 3 billion odd years ago as a lifeless planet, continued till the last few millenia as filled with bodies with life, will one day be teeming with minds.
The journey is going on, let's enjoy the ride.
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