The Roads Less Travelled …

Recently, I have been wondering a fair bit about one of my favorite genres in literature and cinema: dystopia. More particularly, I am wondering what exactly can be called a dystopia.Webster defines dystopia as an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives. Classic works in this genre, 1984 and We included, fall right within this definition. A couple of words/phrases in the above definition, I think, are more important than others and are worth a second look.

The first is imaginary. Technical definitions aside, the basic notion of dystopia is something that is “against the grain” of utopia. Now since, utopia itself is an imaginary construction it is easy to see where the “imaginary” of dystopia comes from. But then semantically isn’t real the antonym of imaginary which leads me to wonder why a dystopia has to be necessarily imaginary.

The other interesting phrase is people lead dehumanized and fearful lives. Again the genesis of this phrase comes utopia, where people apparently have no problems in life since in laws, government, and social conditions it is the ideal. I often wondered if there is one size that fits all i.e. if the notion of utopia is an absolute. If it is not then for the beings in the text itself it too cannot be so, however imaginary it might be. Either that or there is exactly one uber-character in the world. But isn’t that what totalitarian societies are all about. Where then is the utopia? Or was it dystopia? Or are they merely the two sides of the same coin?

My contention is the following: a work neither needs to be staged in an imaginary place nor have dehumanized characters to be called a dystopia. The Catcher in the Rye and Catch-22 while not set in imaginary or alternate worlds can be essentially called dystopias while everybody-lives-happily-thereafter texts could be classified as utopias. Life is after-all a two faced liar :).

As an aside an excellent chronology of dystopian (in the traditional sense) fiction and the events that affected it can be found here.

The assumption of a rationality underlies amongst other things the entire discipline of economics. Agency theory which extends the notion of rationality into selfishness forms the bulwark of most of what is taught to students in management schools all over the world.

However, as this recent article in Scientific American points out the basic assumption of rationality might be under question. Using a game that is a modified version of the well known Prisoner’s Dilemma called The Traveller’s Dilemma Prof. Kaushik Basu tries to understand this basic assumption. The game itself is very simple with inductive logic at the heart of it: X and Y are asked to value an item with X paying x and Y paying y with a payoffs of (x,y) if x = y, (x+2, x-2) if x<y and (y-2, y+2) if y<x with m <= x, y <= M. If we assume both X and Y to be selfish entities then each would say m as the value. This is how: if x=y=M they get M each but if x = M-1 and y= M , then X gets M+1. Thus X would go down one notch. Y will reason also reason as such and will push each others values down to the lowest possible m. If one has realized something very similar lies at the heart of argument that competition drives the prices down.

H owever experimental evidence as the author states runs contrary to the expectations. With M = 100 and m = 2, he found people quoting much more in the 90s than the optimal number. The idea basically is this: if X quotes 90 and is fairly sure that Y will quote somewhere around the number say 88, X would still be better off getting 86 rather than when he got 2. The question therefore is how sure is “fairly sure”. This would explain even in markets with almost all attributes of perfect competition why one can still see collusion between the players. Or why people daily make choices that would not be rational on any accounts.

Management academics such as Henry Mintzberg and Sumantra Ghosal, have pointed out that focusing solely on Agency theory, which in turn goes back to rationality as a basic assumption, to understand human traits and predict reactions as is followed in various b-schools is responsible for many of the corporate excesses of the Enron type. Experimental results such as above lead further credence to the growing belief that assigning the label of competitor-out-to-get-you to everyone as in the famous Porter model is not necessarily the best way of thinking about business. It is just one way of thinking about it because maybe human beings are not entirely rational.

The recent edition of Economist, has a survey on cities and the phenomenon of urbanization. (Only the main article is for public viewing and the rest need subscription )

Apart from a couple of interesting facts: urbanization is now highest in Africa (with Lagos now listed as a mega-city, alongside the likes of London and Paris), the survey presents an interesting overview of what a city means to wide swathe of people who seem to be thronging to them in increasing numbers across the world.

The contention is simple, for the developing and less mature urban societies, primarily in Asia, Africa and Latin America, cities mean what they have meant to humanity since times immemorial. The promise of a better life than provided by living of the land. The articles do well to point out that not all these promises turn to actions and often the quality of life left behind was better. However, one things that does stand out is that in cities people have a better chance to eke out a living than in the country.

The second part of the survey concentrated more on the established (prosperous or sometime prosperous) cities and questions such as what keeps a city ticking and need (or the lack thereof of them) in developed economies. With the concept of space growing redundant with the proliferation of internet and other services, do cities really matter. It does - at least for a certain demographic section - says the survey. While the middle aged might prefer the quiet of the suburbs raising their families, the young and the old will prefer the clamor and the hustle of the city.

Personally, I like cities. Chris Anderson in Long Tail says that in cities since the population is higher one can find niches to operate in much more easily than in the suburbs where the Law of Hits will invariably crowd out anything out of the way. The second explanation, is provided by the survey, which says cities with the closeness they imply are much better places to meet new people, exchange ideas and try our new things. However, this does not explain why certain cities might be more attractive than others for people who like them. Culture - says the article - might be the answer. I personally know people, who lived in Mumbai (Bombay) all their lives and swear that nothing else in the world can be that good. I with my limited exposure tend to swear by Bangalore - rather than Delhi, Mumbai or Calcutta. While this culture is not created overnight, a city has to explicitly re-invent itself to keep itself attractive to the times. Bangalore for example, started as a pensioner’s paradise before turning into the IT hub of India. Over years, as the IT booms plateaus it will have to find something else to identify itself with. This direction - the evidence in the survey implies, relies not on the Wisdom of the Crowds, but on the direction of governing authorities who are probably the most critical elements in the success of a city.

All in all, a very fascinating study.

Technorati Tags: economist, urbanization

From the outset, I will clarify one thing - I am not against the instrument of positive discrimination called Reservations, and yet deeply disturbed by the ways this instrument is being and has been handled by the Indian polity - present and past. I would also not be quoting any numbers here except where I am sure that they answer the question I am asking; statistics do not lie but they illustrate trends only for the questions asked which makes them easy targets of appropriation by vested interests (any numbers affirming or rejecting my conclusions will be greatly appreciated). Lastly, I am not social scientist; these are merely personal observations and analysis and are limited by the range of my experiences.

To express oneself in completeness, I believe is the basic fundamental right of a human being. India has a problem; a vast section of the society continues to be denied this right. The fundamental rights enshrined in our constitution, are an attempt, I believe towards this specific end. Yet 60 years after independence we continue to grapple with the fact that for a considerable chunk of Indian population these rights remain black ink markings on paper. I have also no doubt that some form of affirmative action will play a major role in the amelioration of the current state of affairs.

Positive discrimination or Affirmative action try to remedy the existing status quo, by forwarding the case of individuals or groups disadvantaged under the existing socio-economic setup. Reservations in education or professional sectors as practiced in India are examples of such actions. The success of any such instrument, including reservations, are contingent upon how well have the twin questions - who are the disadvantaged and why are they disadvantaged - answered. Any measures implemented after answering the above should primarily be graded on how well they fare on these counts for the targeted audience- how many have they affected and to what level have they affected.

This is where my disenchantment with the existing model in India stems from. Reading the transcript of our HR Ministers’ interview and the resignation letter of Mr Pratap Bhanu Mehta, as Member-Convener of the National Knowledge Commission, has left no questions in my mind that the questions outlined earlier were not even attempted to be answered by the government before pushing through the current decision. India has been implementing positive affirmation in form of reservations for over half a decade now. The nation, I think, deserves an answer on the success of these programmes. That I, sitting here in my comfortable room in Bangalore, am cognizant of the fact that a huge chunk of the population continues to disempowered, makes me question the efficacy of such programmes. That caste system continues to be a grotesque reality in this country 60 years after Nehru uttered the words Tryst with Destiny, engenders questions on the success of the various social upliftment schemes into which hundreds of crores of public money have gone. There are no solid numbers; there are merely words that can only convey so much. The Mandal commission report on which most of the reservation policies are based talks of many forms of affirmative actions and not only reservations. Yet the polity has continued to ignore these. The numbers used in the report are grossly outdated and do not provide the necessary framework to take decisions. There has been no attempt made to take a fresh look at these numbers. Since these are numbers without context, they are bandied about with ease in situations that are completely out of context.

Higher education in form of getting into the IITs or the IIMs in India is, I dare say, a dream (as with all dreams turned realities they do not deliver paradise - they have their set of limitations). A vast majority of population in India is not empowered enough to dream this dream - some for economic reasons (I do not think banks give easy loans for studying in Kota) but lot many more because they simply lack the vocabulary to ensconce their hopes of making it big into a dream of getting into these colleges. You might be giving everything to a person on a platter, but how will the person avail it if he does not even know about it. It is in this light that I believe that if any sector we need to turn our immediate attention to, it is primary education. The crores that the government is planning to put into IITs and IIMs increasing seats to placate the general candidates, I believe, would be better utitized in a well implemented primary education scheme.

So who are the beneficiaries of the existing schemes; a small section amongst the officially backward who can now be called ex-backward; a section whose children enjoy all the amenities that an average middle class child gets; schools, teachers, coaching. This section has usurped the voice of the masses and now speaks through it of its own vested interests. This section is primarily responsible for the failure of the existing schemes. Unless they are taken out of the equation, measures such as reservations will continue to fatten them at the cost of the actual targets and beget renewed casteism in the society.

I would not, however, tread on the path of meritocracy to augment my argument. JEE and CAT are not the only indicators of merit. I would go as so far as to say that they are not even proper indicators for the task concerned. As for the quality of the institutes in question is concerned, they are facing much greater problems than the quality of incoming students in terms of faculty and infrastructure; and owing to the skewed supply and demand of seats in these places, they will in probability continue to get good students even with reservation implemented.

All said, the current step by the government seems like a political gimmick - that will neither address the real concerns nor empower the underprivileged masses, but is rather a short sighted attempt to garner some votes. All I see this retrograde step achieving is to continue the legacy of divisive caste based politics in India for years to come.

Apurva has here (and here) some of his views on this issue. A search on Technoratii will take you to numerous other posts discussing this issue and there are far too many to list out here.

Technorati Tags: Reservations, Positive Affirmation, Caste Politics

X is a really smart computer geek. Dropping out of college he gets together with a bunch of like minded nerds and together they write the next generation search engine; an engine which can take audio clippings either directly from a mike or stored earlier and returns results text and media both from the web. Amazing innovation and a great leap on the existing technology done, X and friends think they can sit back and soak themselves in the ephemeral glory till it lasts and roll around in moolah till probably the end of their lives. Suddenly out of the blue comes a troll on their sylvan beaches and chases them out of it. They are back into the dreay world but only with broken dreams and empty pockets. They don’t even have a degree for backup. They now wish they had atleast finished them.

I know the above example is kind of an extreme scenario, but I think it elucidates why the patent system as it exists today has become a hindrance rather than a motivator for innovation. Recent court judgements in the Blackberry case and the earlier fracas created by Amazon in the 1-click case, have brought these unsavoury aspects of patents, as they exist today especially in the software industry, into limelight.

It is informative at this stage to recollect why patents exist in the first place. Patents are a barter that governments agree to allow faster dissemination of information and subsequent innovations; the inventor is allowed a restricted monopoly in the market and in return he makes the knowledge leading to the innovation public. So while the inventor gains in monetary, social and intellectual terms, the market gains by greater competition in the long run. To be granted a patent there are two established ground rules - the invention has to be new and it has to be non-obvious. It is the later term that is the cause of a great many problems todays, since there is a very thin (but distinct) line between non-obvious and simple.

Almost everybody except the so called patent trolls agree that a major revamp is needed. Paul Graham, Greg Blonder, Brad Feld, Fred Wilson are amongst the many who have called for such reforms. And then there are others who believe that patents should not exist in the first place though what motivation will somebody then have for taking risks I cannot understand (I can see allusions being made to the open source movement here but I have a different theory on that). Neither do I agree with Paul Graham’s view that small time innovators should not really worry about patent infringement, since they are just small fish. But their aim is to become a big fish one day and with the current system in place, they are just lambs being fattened for slaughter. I personally believe that the patent system is not without its merits but it does need a major revamp. Firstly granting of patents and their expiry should keep pace with the innovation in the field. Also their should be a clear distinction between a generic paradigm (threads for parallel processing) applied in a novel way and a new invention (a face detection algorithm that matches profile views). Also a patent before being awarded, must, like a IEEE paper, be rigorously peer reviewed.

While pointing out the inadequacies of the system, many restrict themselves to the preceding discussion. However there is a bigger problem. I read somewhere (cannot recollect the link or remember the breadcrumbs) that many of Google’s top innovations are infact not patented. They remain fairly sure that even if discovered otherwise, they only can get the full power out of those innovations; added to it the fact that they would not want facts about their super-parallel, super-fault tolerant and super-fast infrastructure to be made public and open for free use after some years. This is the basic problem that the patent system was designed to prevent. If we start having islands of knowledge then it will lead to a market with great knowledge divides; the knowing and the lesser mortals. The amount of innovation lost, not just in terms of standing on the shoulders of giants but also varied applications of common principles in different domains, would be truely staggering. And as for the X and his friends; they would never even take the plunge in the first place.

This week as I was browsing the blogsphere, I realized that a revolution of sorts was happening amongst the Indian bloggers. The issue in question was that of the nature and authenticity of the claims made by IIPM, whose flag bearer Arindam Choudhari is often listed amongst the top Indian management gurus.

Jammag, a little known publication tried to delve into the high claims made by the IIPM ads, and came out with an unflattering article regarding the veracity of these claims. Another blogger Gaurav Sabnis links to this article and expresses his own views . IIPM serves legal notice to Sabnis, which to me sounded more like the eternal Bollywood riff-raff "agar tumne hamara kaam nahin kiya to …". The issue heats up in the blogsphere with some apparently disillusioned souls coming out strongly in support of IIPM, by personally attacking Rashmi Bansal (the author of the Jammag article) and Gaurav. To have some fun type IIPM in Blogger search and follow the links.

The whole issue can at extremes be stated as a new direction of social movement by responsible people or a cheap smear campaign to generate some thrills in normally placid arena. Truth however is the fact that, IIPM over the last few years has invested heavily in advertising, especially in newspapers. Arindam Choudhuri has written best-selling (and in my opinion crap) books and has even directed a movie. On the face of such heavy media bombardment it is perfectly normal for an individual or an organization to look into the truthfullness of the tall claims. And that is exactly what has happened and IIPM has not come out of it looking too good. And like a truant child who has been discovered of his misdemeanors, it is creating a ruckus.

Yesterday, completely jobless (as I often am), I turned on the television set to see some kind of public debate program on NDTV on whether cricket was an issue of national importance. Amongst the august participants we had MD of ESPN-Star probably the most popular sports channel in India and the CEO and the ex-chairman of Prasar Bharati, the organization responsible for Doordarshan India's national channel.

The issue in contention was that TEN sports has refused to share the broadcast rights of the current India-Sri Lanka series with DD. Doordarshan on its part is crying foul saying such a move deprives the general populace of the pleasure of enjoying the Indian cricket team in action. The officials at Prasar Bharati feel that cricket brings some light into the dreary lives of Indians and therefore it should be mandated by legislation that all channels have to share their broadcasting rights with DD of those matches in which India is playing.

Identification of cricket as an issue of national importance is something that makes me deeply uncomfortable. Are we so advanced a nation that we can claim a sport to be an issue of national importance. I do not think so - not while people are still dying of hunger, children cannot educated because primary education is not accessible enough, India's financial and corporate capital Mumbai, grinds to halt every year due to heavy rainfall. The proposition that cricket is on par with these issues seems inane.

Another problem is, why cricket? Does DD want to do this for all sporting events of importance - whether it be soccer, athletics or hockey. I do not think so. Cricket is at many levels restricting other sports in India from developing, garnering a huge proportion of talent, finance and sponsorship. Sports in India is in a vicious circle. People do not watch anything except cricket because cricket seems to be only thing that we are good at, and no one goes into anything other than cricket as there is a huge disparity in fields. I find it ironic that the recent Hockey premier which brought so many of us a welcome respite from hours of Indian cricket or English premier league soccer was pioneered by ESPN and Star sports. I found people were genuinely enthusiastic about the whole thing - religiously following teams. On the basis of that small experiment I would differ if someone stated that cricket is the panacea of the sport loving junta here. Shown properly we can appreciate other things - hockey, soccer and F1 being some cases.

Coming to Doordarshan. From the quality of programs they show it is no wonder that the entire organization needs a huge shakeup. Basically as the world around them changed with liberalization they have still retained that monopolist attitude that we are the only one. Yes, with satellite channels yet to permeate into the deep of Indian hinterland, this assumption might be correct in many places but the guys in DD have to realize that the situation is changing and changing fast. They have to realize that they are providing a service and are being paid for it by their consumers (taxes in case you wondered). They have to understand they would have to compete (if not now then in near future) with private firms on an equal footing - bidding for the same events and fighting for the same advertisements. And that there is nothing like a free lunch.

On the other hand, even if cricket is not a topic of national importance, it is a national obsession. It would be nice if DD can come to terms with other channels, so that Indians in the remotest corners of the country are on level terms with their more connected counterparts atleast in cricket. But DD has to take the responsibility for affecting this. It has to make the other broadcasters offers they cannot refuse. What is not acceptable is not taking up this responsibility and instead trying hide behind legislations.

I think it has been a long time since I have cribbed about my work. The thing was that I was so much into C++ shit that all arduous tasks there had become routine and I seemed to be settling into some kind of a pact with my compiler - I do not do this, you do not crib.

However programming on the Pi App has again brought the crib demon back in me. I mean why can't Mozilla and IE come to some kind of agreement about how to do things. As Luis said, "Mozilla and IE are as similar as Unix and Windows". While I can comprehend the Unix and Windows point, the former fails me. Its not that it is new knowledge - I just got hit by it. My first feature in the App and I had to send a mail saying this freaking thing does not work, let me figure it out first. Shitty, if you ask me.

C++ coding has this beautiful symmetry to it. Things work here and there. Not so with WWW. Freaky thing works on my machine and bloody crashes when it is deployed. Arbit. Bonkers. Crazy. Words that describe my state right now?

I stop now for I have to go and figure something out.

TIME got its list of 100 all time best movies out recently - ranked in no order. The list can be found here.

The list in my opinion reduces to a vehicle for lip service to the world of cinema and while maintaining a politically correct stand.

In the list we find no mention of cinematic classics like Godard's A bout de souffle, Fellini's La Dolce Vita or Di Sica's Ladri di bicicllete. Incidentally the later insipred the Apu trilogy of Ray which is there in the list. The selection comittee's criteria was that the movie should leave the viewer with some sense of awe. An subjective benchmark - but the non inclusion of classics which have revolutionzed the way films have been made and seen does not lend much credibility to the list. Missing also is The Battleship Potemkin, a film that virtually gave the world the language of cinema.

Also consider the entry of Kandahar. If one had to choose a representative for the brilliant humanist cinema out of Iran one should probably look at Cyclist or Close Up. On seeing Kandahar in the list, I somehow got the feeling that it is there not only for its cinematic abilities but for the fact that it was shot in Talibanized Afghanistan. Similarly lip service is paid to Kurosawa (on selection of Yojimbo) and to entire film industries by the inclusion of Pyasa and Nayakan. While the aforementioned two movies are brilliant (they are amongst my favorites), I am sure that Indian cinema has more to offer than these two entries. For the sheer pleasure of viewing not many movies of the era match Mughl-e-Azam for that matter.

While the list does make up a good collection of movies to be watched, I would hardly rate it as a good list of the best movies of all time.

Just read this article … [Thanks Arun]

What flumoxxed me after reading the article is the fact that a society can become so paranoid with fear, that it refuses to grant their next generation the freedom of expression.

Is it just another manifestation of the "American way"? Can any conflicts in actions and ideas be equated with sedition? Or is this a newer definition of patriotism that I am not aware of?