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abhijit jambhale on Macaulay’s speech in the House of Commons in 1833
D. Simms on Rationality
Dr. Ajit R. Jadhav on 2G and the real scam
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bahha on Debates
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"I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."
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I quote these not because I find them inspiring or insightful but because I find them revealing

Moving on
Posted on April 22, 2011 by K. M.

Discussions on the internet can be very entertaining (and distracting). The comment thread on this post on Raymond Chen’s blog is a case in point. A certain commenter makes a valid point criticizing a misspelled variable name in the post. Several other commenters feel compelled to defend Chen and the original commenter feels compelled to defend himself against them. The comment thread thus becomes a distraction from the highly interesting topic of the post.

Personally, I have learnt to move on after making a point. The point of this post is to reinforce those lessons.

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Filed under: Conversations, Introspection | Leave a Comment »
Novels vs movies
Posted on April 11, 2011 by K. M.

Via The New Clarion, here is a fascinating review of a scene from the Atlas Shrugged movie. Ronald Pisaturo compares the original scene from the novel with the movie adaptation.

I would never have been able to identify all that is wrong in the movie scene, but the contrast between the movie scene and the original is obvious. Reading an analysis of the contrast – in style as well as meaning – is fascinating as it helps me understand what sets Rand’s novels apart from other novels. I have long wanted to write a review of Atlas Shrugged and lacked the ability to do so. This review of a single scene captures some key aspects of what a full review should express.

I have always thought that adapting a novel like Atlas Shrugged to the movie medium without missing a significant part of its power is impossible. Reading Pisaturo’s essay reinforced that idea. Here is the original passage from the novel

He touched the bracelet in his pocket. He had had it made from that first poured metal. It was for his wife.
As he touched it, he realized suddenly that he had thought of an abstraction called “his wife”—not of the woman to whom he was married. He felt a stab of regret, wishing he had not made the bracelet, then a wave of self-reproach for the regret.
He shook his head. This was not the time for his old doubts. He felt that he could forgive anything to anyone, because happiness was the greatest agent of purification. He felt certain that every living being wished him well tonight. He wanted to meet someone, to face the first stranger, to stand disarmed and open, and to say, “Look at me.” People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been—for a moment’s relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.

— Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

No matter how well a scene like this is adapted to the movie medium (I think Pisaturo does a good job of describing a possible adaptation), understanding the scene would remain subject to the viewer’s perceptiveness and interpretation. The novel on the other hand is unambiguous. It states everything in plain words and the meaning is impossible to miss. Speaking for myself, I would surely have missed most of the meaning in the passage in any adaptation I can imagine. And that explains why I don’t really enjoy watching movies.

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Filed under: Introspection, Movies | Tagged: Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Movies, Novels | Leave a Comment »
Rationality
Posted on February 23, 2011 by K. M.

In common usage, people sometimes tend to use the words rational and logical somewhat interchangeably. The purpose of this post is to distinguish between these.

Logic:

Logic is the set of rules that allows me to evaluate an arguement independent of its content, purely from its structure. Just as I use grammar to parse a sentence and determine the relationships between the words in the sentence, I use logic to parse an arguement and determine the relationships between the statements in the arguement. Just as a grammatical sentence may be meaningless (Colorless green ideas sleep furiously), a logical arguement may be meaningless or irrelevant. However, the analogy with grammar only goes so far. There are many different grammars and all of them are equally valid within the context of their application – a given language. Any consistently applied way of meaningfully combining words in a sentence forms a grammar. Grammar is a matter of convention. The same is not true of logic. The word itself has no plural. This is a striking fact. Think about it. It indicates that man cannot even conceive of a plural for logic. There can be no such thing as my logic vs your logic. Logic is the structure of coherant thought. It is a part of the mental apparatus that man is born with. It is implicit in the capacity to think. By implicit, I mean that I cannot choose to think illogically (though I may make mistakes). To identify mistakes in thinking, the implicit rules of logic need to be made explicit by identifying them. This is a science. Like all sciences, the science of logic also presupposes several things. In particular, it presupposes man’s ability to use logic (implicitly). Whether the word logic refers to the implicit set of rules or to the science which deals with identifying them depends on context. In this post, I am going to use the word logic to refer to the implicit set of rules.

Reason:

Reason is the faculty of understanding and integrating sensory material into knowledge. Reason does not work automatically. To reason, man has to consciously choose to think and to direct his thoughts to achieve understanding. By directing thoughts, I mean preventing thoughts from wandering by staying focussed. Reasoning involves the use of logic. It also involves several other techniques. “Reason employs methods. Reason can use sense-perception, integration, differentiation, reduction, induction, deduction, philosophical detection, and so forth in any combination as a chosen method in solving a particular problem.” [Burgess Laughlin in a comment on an old post] Deduction obviously uses logic. I believe induction does too but the science on inductive logic is nowhere as well developed as it is on deductive logic. Sense-perception, integration and differentiation don’t use logic (Note: integration and differentiation refer to grasping the similarities and differences between various things). Reason then is not simply the faculty of using logic.

Rationality:

“Rationality is man’s basic virtue, the source of all his other virtues… The virtue of rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action.” [Ayn Rand, in The Virtue of Selfishness]

In the discussion that motivated this post, a colleague argued that if the use of reason does not guarantee correct decisions, it cannot be one’s only guide to action. A gut feeling or intuition might sometimes be a better guide to action. There are two separate issues here – the fact that the use of reason cannot guarantee correct decisions and the claim that intuition can be an alternative guide to action.

Consider intuition first. Intuition is an involuntary automatic evaluation of the available choices. There is no conscious awareness of the reasons for the evaluation. Intuition is a learnt response from previous experience. As such intuition is extremely helpful in any decision making process. However, the fact remains that in every voluntary decision – the sort of decision where there is enough time to reason – intuition is only one of the inputs to the use of reason. As long as I make a decision consciously and deliberately, reason remains the only guide to action. The only alternative is to evade the responsibility of a choice. Relying upon intuition is not irrational in itself. I might decide that I do not have sufficient knowledge to reach a decision and choose to rely upon intuition instead. As long as I identify the lack of knowledge, my decision is fully rational. Identifying the lack of knowledge (and hopefully doing something about it) will actually allow me to learn from the new experience and improve my intuitions for future use. Blindly relying on intuition – by default instead of by choice – will actually weaken my intuition in the long run. Intuition is one of the most valuable tools for decision making but it needs to be carefully cultivated by the use of reason for it to be good or useful.

It is important to stress that rationality (in the context of making a decision) involves the use of all my knowledge to the best of my ability. In particular, this includes knowledge of the time available, the relevance of prior experience and any known gaps in knowledge. It is this last aspect of rationality – the use of known gaps in knowledge – that is the motivation for the field of probability. Probability is about quantifying uncertainty by making use of all known information and postulating equal likelihood where no information is available. The consistent use of the equal likelihood postulate is at the heart of probability theory and it is what gives probability its precise mathematical characteristics. In modeling an outcome for an uncertain event, I start with a uniform distribution (every outcome is equally likely) and use available information to transform it into a more appropriate distribution. The parameters of the transformation represent a quantitative use of known information. The shape of the final distribution represent a qualitative use of the known information.

With this brief treatment of probability, I can now address the obvious fact that the use of reason cannot guarantee correct decisions. Consider an example. I have historical data for the exchange rate between a pair of currencies. I also have market quoted prices for various financial instruments involving the currency pair. To model the exchange rate at some future time with a probability distribution, I can use the historical data to establish the shape of the distribution and the market quoted prices to obtain the parameters of the distribution. If I had more information (say a model for other parameters that affect the exchange rate), I could incorporate that too. A decision based on such a model would be a rational decision. On the other hand, I could say that since the model does not guarantee success, I will simply use a uniform distribution (Ouch!! That is not even possible since the range for the exchange rate is unbounded. Let me simply restrict the range to an intuitive upper bound) with the arguement that the uniform distribution might actually turn out to be better. Yes, it might turn out to be better, but the arguement that it should be used is still invalid (Consequentialism is invalid and I am not going to argue this). Not all decisions can be formulated with precise mathematics like this, but the principle is the same. It is always better to use all my knowledge to the best of my ability.

Another aspect of the original discussion remains unaddressed – the claim that rationality is subjective. Since this post has already got long enough, I will just stress here that there is a difference between context-dependent and subjective.

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Filed under: Concepts, Conversations | Tagged: Epistemology, Grammar, Logic, Mathematics, Probability, Rationality, Reason | 1 Comment »
2G and the real scam
Posted on February 16, 2011 by K. M.

Allegedly, the public exchequer has incurred a loss of several tens of thousands of crores of potential income from auctions on the 2G spectrum. And the controversy over this refuses to die down. No one seems to realize that the government does not own spectrum and has no rights to auction it in the first place. Most people seem to believe that the government owns everything by default. So let me play along and see where this logic leads.

To setup a shop (or pretty much anything) in India, one needs to acquire a license (or registration or whatever). As far as I know, these licenses have never been auctioned. Assuming a very modest figure of Rs 1 lac per shop license auctioned, and just half a million shops who could have paid this modest sum, that works out to a loss of 5000 crores.

Over 750,000 two wheelers were sold in India last year. Each of those had to be registered. These registrations could have been limited (with the added benefit of reducing road congestion and pollution) – say to 500,000 – and auctioned to raise revenue. Assuming a modest amount of an extra Rs 10000 per registration, that works out to a loss of 500 crores. Similar losses could be worked out for sales of other vehicles. Let us say the total loss on all vehicles is 2000 crores. Further the government could have made it mandatory to renew vehicle registrations every year (as a security measure). These renewals could also be auctioned (to reduce the incentive to keep using old vehicles, thus reducing pollution). Assuming a very small amount of Rs 1000 on average per vehicle registration and estimating the number of vehicle owners who would pay this amount at 20 million, the total loss works out to another 2000 crores.

The cricket world cup is coming up. The right to use cricket as a theme for advertisements could be restricted and auctioned. Just imagine the loss! Easily another few thousand crores.

Tens of thousands of people migrate into cities from rural areas or smaller cities and towns. Since these people obviously cannot afford to buy houses, they stay on rent (if not in illegal slums). The right to rent space could be auctioned (with the added benefit of reducing overcrowding of the cities). Another few thousand crores lost.

Enough of examples. Let me generalize. Any activity that results in any value to anyone could be restricted by the government and the rights to it could be auctioned, thus generating additional revenues. Assuming just 1% of GDP as the revenue that the government could have generated by auctioning rights to economic activity, that amounts to a loss of 70,000 crores per year. Aren’t auctions wonderful? They have such immense potential to generate revenue. Sadly, this incredible idea is woefully under-used by policy makers. And no one is complaining about this scam!

Enough of sarcasm! Suppose the license rights had been auctioned. Who would have paid the money? The telecom companies who would have had to remain in business by lowering their costs - paying lower salaries to their staff or by hiring less, increasing the prices for their services and by reducing their profits. Ultimately, it is the “common man” – that mythical creature worshipped by all policy makers – who would have paid for the license rights. And where would the money have gone? Ah it would have gone to the same place where government money usually goes – but really, that is rude of me. I should not dare to ask such questions. Of course it would have gone into welfare schemes for the common man - the NREGA (remember the pictures of smiling villagers carrying a couple kgs of mud on their heads?), the minimum support price for various foodgrains (wasn’t there a recent report about grains rotting in government godowns? never mind), the public distribution system (absolutely necessary since minimum support prices cause inflation), the right to be educated (in a school where teachers never turn up, but that’s OK, the children can atleast have fun) etc. These are all noble ideas with proven track records. They must be implemented at all costs. You see, the “common man” is too stupid to know what he should do with his own money. That money should be taken away from him – by means of taxes on all consumption, license fees on every service that he uses etc, etc. A portion of it should be used to subsidize higher education (after all, the bureaucrats and policy makers need to be educated, don’t they?). Another portion should be used to establish various government agencies (like the agency which calculated the loss to the exchequer in the 2G scam). Another portion should be used to fund events such as the Commonwealth Games (it is a matter of national prestige after all). Another portion should be allocated to muncipal agencies and the like (like the one that digs up the road in front of my house every 3 weeks). Another portion should be used to line the pockets of the entire government machinery (people are corrupt and selfish, what to do?). Another portion should be used to create TV and other media advertisements for welfare schemes. And then, whatever is left (if any) may be returned back to the common man who should be grateful and beholden to the government for thinking of his welfare. Where would he be if he were left to the mercies of the free market? Oh no. That is just unimaginable. He would simply be exploited by the capitalists and left without a home, education and health care if he had full control over all his money. Just imagine!

Oh, did I get back to sarcasm after starting the last para with “Enough of sarcasm!”. Sorry about that. The real scam here is much, much larger than a few thousand crores. It has been in operation for decades (centuries?). And it is primarily a moral scam, not a monetary one. It is perpetuated by people who seek to derive their self esteem second hand – not from their personal achievements but from a claim to altruism (however tenuous), not from producing value but from distributing the value they have not produced. People like Raja are not responsible for the scam. People who support the system that makes Raja inevitable are.

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Filed under: Current Events | Tagged: 2G scam, Auctions, Corruption, Economics, Free Market, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Autonomous political institutions
Posted on January 5, 2011 by K. M.

In a post about Swaminathan Aiyer’s recent article in The Times of India about “freeing the police”, Aristotle the geek makes a very good point:

All coercive capabilities of the state must always be under civilian political control.

Aiyer’s article reminds me of Fareed Zakaria’s book “The Future of Freedom – Illiberal Democracy at Home & Abroad” where Zakaria advocates the creation of autonomous regulatory entities not subject to political control. Both Zakaria and Aiyer seem to want to temper the consequences of a run-away democracy. There is a slight difference in context though. Aiyer writes about the police which is a legitimate state activity whereas Zakaria writes about areas where the government should have no role at all.

Regardless of the difference in context, both Zakaria and Aiyer are wrong. Both advocate the creation of an unaccountable bureaucracy. Both seem to forget that there is indeed an independent government entity not directly subject to political control – the judiciary. The judiciary can be independent because it deals with issues that are not political. In a properly limited and functional democracy, the judiciary should be sufficient to address any misuse of power by the agents of the state. The solution to a runaway democracy cannot be an unaccountable bureaucracy. Both need to be abolished. And that leads me to the point I want to make. Abolishing the ability of a democratic government to run out of control can only work in a culture that respects individual rights.

Political change is necessarily preceded by cultural change.

Aiyer’s article shows that despite all his claims to be a liberal, he does not really understand liberty at all. Anyone who thinks liberty can be achieved by political means fundamentally misunderstands it.

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Filed under: Media articles | Tagged: Cultural Change, Democracy, Judiciary, Liberty, Police, Politics, State | Leave a Comment »
Diversity
Posted on December 26, 2010 by K. M.

I just went through this series of posts on diversity (link to the last post in the series) by William Briggs. Here, in India, one does not hear much about diversity and I have not spent time evaluating policies to promote it. So I was a little surprised to see a five part series on diversity, making rather obvious points to come to this conclusion:

The whole point of this laborious, pedantic essay up to this point has been to prove to you what you might not have heretofore granted. That “diversity” as it is used by its proponents retains no shade of meaning with its plain English sense. It instead is a code word; a dodge to hide ulterior motives, perhaps even motives not fully understood by the word’s users; a phrase having a purely technical definition which runs something like this:

Within in a scope diversity is the state of (maximal or proportional, whichever is more convenient to my politics) difference in behavior and characteristic, both of which are chosen from a narrow range most conducive to my personal likes and political goals. Diversity is not diversity—a state of difference; dissimilitude; unlikeness.—but unity with my desires.

So I went ahead and read the comment thread on the last post and saw some passionate defence of policies to promote diversity. In this post, I will present my position on such policies.

Consider a hiring decision for a particular position

There is a desirable set of characteristics as determined by the position itself. These characteristics can include physical attributes, intellectual abilities, work experience etc.

There is also a practically infinite set of characteristics that are irrelevant (depending on the position).

The best hiring decision is clearly one that ignores the irrelevant characteristics completely. However, it is important to recognize that the persons making the hiring decisions can be influenced by biases, perhaps unconsciously. Biased decisions hurt everyone’s interests. In a world where such biases (both conscious and unconscious) are very obvious, it is desirable to have a policy in place that prevents biases.

Avoiding biases is a difficult task especially when some of the biases are unconscious. It requires active thought and effort. Statistically, avoiding biases results in diversity of irrelevant characteristics. A policy to promote diversity substitutes the goal (avoiding biases) with its statistical results (diversity).

This inversion of cause and effect in social relations is the essential and defining characteristic of social engineering. Policies to promote diversity can thus be classifed under that same concept. The only difference between such policies and policies like reservations and quotas is one of degree.

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Filed under: Concepts | Tagged: Biases, Diversity, Quotas, Reservations, Social Engineering | Leave a Comment »
A queue is a one dimensional mob
Posted on December 10, 2010 by K. M.

via The Old New Thing. One dimensional mob! I just love that characterization.

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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Funny | Leave a Comment »
Monna Vanna
Posted on December 4, 2010 by K. M.

I was looking to take a small break from work and ended up reading Monna Vanna, a play by Maurice Maeterlinck. It is easily one of the best works of fiction I have read in a long time. I only have a couple of regrets about it. First, that I don’t know French, so I couldn’t read the original work, and second, that I already knew part of the story.

The first act sets up the plot nicely and the next two acts are just brilliant – in particular, the conversation between Monna Vanna and Prinzivalle. The climax is both dramatic and logical, a rare combination. In fact, the entire play is like that – characterization is clear and the riveting plot is consistent with the characterization right upto the end. The character of Monna Vanna is inspiring.

I doubt if women in Renaissance Europe were as independent as Monna Vanna. None of the other works of fiction set during that period that I have read have strong women characters. I have a bit of fascination with fiction set in historical times (not sure why?) and the contrast with other works set in such periods makes Monna Vanna even more attractive.

I wonder if other works by Maeterlinck are as good as this. The Wikipedia page on Maeterlinck says that his plays are characterized by fatalism and mysticism. Monna Vanna is mostly free of both. There is no mysticism and only the character of Marco can be seen as fatalist.

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Filed under: Book Reviews | Tagged: Maeterlinck, Monna Vanna, Plays | Leave a Comment »
How not to design a User Interface
Posted on November 21, 2010 by K. M.

Some time back I discovered that Windows Vista/7 comes with a command line tool named robocopy with some advanced functionality to copy files and mirror folders. Source control usually makes such tools unnecessary, but I thought it might come in useful nevertheless. So I looked for a GUI wrapper and found this! (I can’t be bothered to remember dozens of command line flags)

This is really an insult to the concept of a Graphical User Interface.

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Filed under: Concepts, Work | Tagged: Funny, GUI Design, Work | Leave a Comment »
The Diary of a Young Girl
Posted on November 21, 2010 by K. M.

I had a couple of spare hours at the airport and picked up this remarkable book – The Diary of a Young Girl

The book is a diary maintained over a two year period by Anne Frank, a 13 year old girl forced to go into hiding to escape the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Holland. The afterword states that Anne was captured and killed in a concentration camp.

At over 400 pages, the book is a long but worth-while read. It describes the transformation of a care-free 13 year old girl into a mature and independent woman. As the adults who are in hiding along with Anne (including her parents) are unable to fully come to terms with their difficult conditions and engage in constant bickering, Anne is able to rise above it all. 15 year old Anne has a better understanding of life than most people ever reach. A couple of examples:

While washing up, Bep began talking to Mother and Mrs van Daan about how discouraged she gets. What help did those two offer her? Our tactless mother, especially, only made things go from bad to worse. Do you know what her advice was? That she should think about all the other people in the world who are suffering! How can thinking about the misery of others help if you’re miserable yourself? I said as much. Their response, of course, was that I should stay out of conversations of this sort.!

At such moments I don’t think about all the misery, but about the beauty that still remains. This is where Mother and I differ greatly. Her advice in the face of melancholy is: ‘Think about all the suffering in the world and be thankful you’re not part of it.’ My advice is: ‘Go outside, to the country, enjoy the sun and all nature has to offer. Go outside and try to recapture the happiness within yourself; think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy.’

I don’t think Mother’s advice can be right, because what are you suposed to do if you become part of the suffering? You’d be completely lost. On the contrary, beauty remains, even in misfortune. If you just look for it, you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance. A person who’s happy will make others happy; a person who has courage and faith will never die in misery!

Apart from the value in reading about how Anne copes with the impossible situation she is in, books like this have another great value. They make history real. It is one thing to know that six million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis and that the second world war lasted for 6 years. It is quite another thing to understand at a concrete level what this did to individual people.

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Filed under: Book Reviews | Tagged: Anne Frank, Holocaust, Nazism, Suffering | Leave a Comment »
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