No Name

When the British ruled India, they were mystified by the practice of having no last name, or surname, associated with an individual. People used to be known by their given name and their father’s name. This made it very difficult to identify who were members of the same family, an important attribute for the civil order that the British were planning to impose.

So, they passed a decree to force people to take a surname. “Sure,” said people in one part of Gujarat, and took the last name that described their profession---Patel, or farmer. Unfortunately, that profession was fairly common, so more or less the entire region became filled with Patels. We were back at square one.

That amusing incidence aside, the British were right. They eventually made the system work, perhaps with some modifications to account for a large number of people having the same last name. However, they were lucky in that people at least had names. 

What if no one has a name?

That would be unthinkable, especially in this day and age. When we are introducing ourselves to a stranger, the first thing we mention is our name.  That is our identifier, one of the defining terms for who we are.

Without having a name, the processes we have built up to create and sustain our civilization will be all gummed up. How can you open a bank account, carry out transactions, borrow a book out of library, or vote without some identifier associated with you?

On a more social note, how will you be able to deal with your friends or others you interact with? Of course, you can use descriptors like, he-with-long-hair, or one-who-walks-with-a limp, to identify who you are talking about, or to catalog in your mind your past interactions with that person.

How cumbersome and unworkable will that be? Will we have enough memory to sustain relationships with a vast network of people if they did not have names? I suppose we will be no different than our ancestors, the chimpanzees. They seem to be able sustain a social network without names. However, those are small intimate networks, not vast ones like ours. And Chimpanzees don’t have bank accounts.

The biggest mystery to me is how not having a name will affect us as individuals? How much of our personal identify is tied up with our name? Will not having a name remove an anchor, setting our ship of self-awareness adrift?

Cruz and Snowden

The rollout of Obamacare has been disastrous. Even a liberal from Massachusetts like me can agree on that. Perhaps a few more months of testing the system would have been beneficial if that was what was needed. It appears that the government agrees and will delay the completion date of the roll out by a few weeks.

“We told you so,” is what Ted Cruz and his cronies are saying. “This is precisely what we wanted the Democrats to do when we shut down the government---delay the roll out.” They may be right, but the tactics they used were totally wrong. One cannot stop the functioning of the government, and hold the full faith and credit of the country hostage to get something one wants, even if it turns out be the right thing to want.

Obama was right in standing firm. Agreeing to the Tea Party demand under the gun would have established a wrong precedence, and there will be no way to stop someone else using the same tactic to slam through another policy change of his choice, one that is not at all beneficial to the country.

End does not justify using illegal or harmful means.

Interestingly, a new drama is now being played out, which has some parallel to the above story. This one deals with NSA and the snooping it did of the heads of state of foreign countries. While NSA does need to do surveillance to identify and deter terrorist plots, it seems inconceivable that tapping of Angela Merkel (which was authorized by Bush/Cheney, by the way, not Obama) would serve any purpose. “Just because we can do something does not mean we should do it,” said Obama, and he is right.

So, Edward Snowden, who released secret documents to bring this to our notice, should be praised, yes?

Not in my opinion. Once again, end does not justify illegal or harmful means. The tactics he used are totally unacceptable, just like the tactics that Ted Cruz used.

When you are granted a security clearance, you pledge not to reveal the secrets that you are made privy to. There is a reason why something is kept secret, because revealing it can cause harm to the country. That is why disclosing state secrets, no matter what they are, is considered to be an act of treason, punishable by law. It has to be a blanket decree that is not left to personal interpretation. Allowing exceptions, just because this time around such a release did provide some benefits, would be disastrous.

Take for example someone with access to our sources in Syria. Should he release their names to Guardian, because he does not believe we should be meddling in Syria? What will be the results? Death of people who have been helping us? If we make Snowden a hero, what right do we have to blame this other disgruntled employee? Where will we draw the line?

Our government is hardly perfect--- even the most patriotic person will agree. There are major issues with the way many departments are being run. However, releasing secrets that may prove harmful to the country is not the way to bring about a change in the policy, even though it may be needed. That is akin to shutting down the government or harming our full faith and credit in order to force a change in the Obamacare roll out.

So, if you agree that what Ted Cruz did was wrong, even though what he was advocating was right, there is no way you can say what Snowden did was right, even though he helped us become aware of NSA’s alleged abuse of power.

If Cruz is an anarchist, then by the same logic, Ed Snowden is a traitor.

Fear of Flying

One evening, long time ago (mid 80s), I was flying from Kansas city to Boston, via Washington DC. The dinner served on the flight (remember those days) was finished and we were waiting for the trays to be cleared by the flight attendants before landing.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a loud boom and a flash, as a lightening struck the side of the plane I was sitting on. This was scary, to say the least, and the woman in the middle seat screamed. Then, what followed was most horrendous turbulence I had ever encountered as the plane made its way through a massive thunderstorm. The woman kept screaming, while the attendants shouted that we should put the trays below the seat in front of us, if we were concerned about the remaining food and drinks flying in our face.

The flight was over pretty soon, and we landed in Washington without any problems, but I was shaken up. I was not even sure if I wanted to get on the connecting flight to Boston. I did, because I had no choice, and it was a smooth flight.

However, that incidence left me with a fear of flying, or more accurately, fear of turbulence, that I cannot shake off even to this day.  I approach each upcoming flight with trepidation.  I check weather to see what I might encounter during the flight and sit near the window, so I can look outside and see what the clouds are doing. I sit apprehensively as the aircraft maneuvers around thunderstorms. If it is a night flight, I do not sleep well, with an illogical thought that somehow my keeping awake is important to my safety when the airplane encounters rough air.

This is a completely irrational fear. There is no chance that the plane will break apart or comedown as a result of turbulence. As an engineer, I can vouch for that. Even the Air France flight, which came down a few years ago in Atlantic while flying through violent weather, did so because of a faulty pitot tube combined with pilot error. Not due to turbulence.

However, the neural connections in my brain have become rewired because of that scary incidence near Washington and can not be reset to their previous state when, like most people, I had no fear and could calmly read a newspaper while the airplane was going through violent motions.

Of course, I have managed to figure out how to continue flying; not having done so would have been a major issue for a management consultant while I was working, and for a world traveller that I have been and hope to continue to be. I play games with mind to make it think that it is a rough bus ride not an airplane flight. I mentally establish thresholds for acceptable vibrations and make my mind ignore those that are below that threshold (a very engineering response to an irrational situation).  I have a glass of wine if it is an evening flight. Somehow I survive.

On the positive side, this has made me realize and accept that even the most rational person can behave irrationally.  Hopefully, it has made me a more tolerant person.

When to Buy a Fake

In my past Blog posts, I have advocated the virtues of buying fake instead of real stuff. In the following I further elaborate on my advice.

Let me start with an equation:

Price you pay = Intrinsic Value  + Bragging value

Intrinsic value equals the value of function the item performs or the real pleasure it provides. Bragging value is the pleasure you get by showing off what you purchased (primarily the pleasure of causing envy). The way to find the intrinsic value is to estimate what you would have paid for the item if you could not show it to anyone or talk about it, thereby rendering the bragging value to zero.

Next, let us consider four examples and see how these values play out, and what would be the difference in purchasing the real thing compared to a fake.

An expensive watch certainly has a lot of bragging value. However, it also has a higher intrinsic value than a fake one because it might last longer and require fewer repairs.

Similarly, Jewelry provides some intrinsic value because of the pleasure it brings by enhancing the beauty of a woman. Also, the material used in creating real jewelry is intrinsically more valuable than a fake one. However, it does have a lot of bragging value, and there is high probability that it will not be purchase it if it cannot be shown to others (and make them jealous).

A “classical” painting has some intrinsic value, in that it brings pleasure to our senses. Why does that happen is not something I fully understand, but it does happen. However, a fake painting will provide the same intrinsic value as the real one, which, done by a well-known artist, has a huge bragging value.

Finally, in my opinion, an abstract painting has practically no intrinsic value. Seeing a canvas with just color blue (yes, I am not making this up) does not do anything for me. However, even this, if done by a well-known artist (a conman?) has high bragging value, at least among people who are in that circle.

All this is shown in a figure below.  It shows both the intrinsic and bragging values of the four objects I talked about. In addition, I have shown what happens if a fake is purchased instead of real one.

My advice on when to buy a fake is based on my feeling that for an object that has higher bragging value than the intrinsic one, there is no point in spending the extra money. Besides, to get the bragging value, it has to be shown to the others and the others have to be convinced that what you have is real and not fake. This is a very risky proposition. I would not take the risk if most of what I spent was for buying the bragging value that may or may not materialize. Finally, for some things the intrinsic value is so small, it may not make sense to buy even a fake one. The “blue canvas” abstract comes to mind.

So, there you have it. Just keep my chart handy when you have to make a major decision on buying something.

PS: Of course, I am not including the investment value in my treatise. I know that many people in the world will ignore my advice and keep paying increasingly higher dollars for the stuff that has a high bragging value, thereby making it a sound investment.