Doubts on God

A thought on possible 'reasons' that prevent us from taking the spiritual path

1.Death: Though death was the prime reason for search for the soul, ironically, people who claimed God, the preachers, avatars, the Buddhas, the Christs are all no more. Apparently, they all had some kind of physical death. So we tend to disbelieve in something that ends.
2.No Magic: Holy books speak about wonders done by God in this planet through his avatars. But spiritualists today preach about body, mind, soul and nature. But no one shows the magic we want to see. They neither become invisible nor walk in an ocean. We expect the divine power to manifest in all these kind of super-natural events.
3.Love, ambition, passion: I love my career and want to achieve this and that. I love people around me. I love my house, my car, my food, my family and the objects I buy. I love travelling, adventures. When small things in life give me the satisfaction and happiness I am looking for, I don’t need to search for God?
4.Lack of Proof: I was taught in the high school to look for evidences before believing in something. The method I use is: Observe the object of interest with physical senses or tools like microscope, telescope etc, apply external stimuli if required and measure changes if any. I believe only if my experiment shows me results that I can ‘show’ it to someone.
5.Justice and morality: When I look around, I see people who make gross crimes but never get punished. On the other hand I see good people suffering. If there was an omnipresent and omnipotent God, wouldn’t he have stopped all this and given proper justice. Wouldn’t the world would have been a better place to live this way. Probably, you have to take care of your life. God won’t help or he doesn’t matter
6.Lack of cause and effect: I pray every day but I don’t see much effect of it. But when I work hard every day I reap the benefits. So why spend time on something that yields results? People might think I am crazy. These things don’t make sense in a technologically advanced modern world that runs on free market principles. These things appear to be for losers and not worth pursuing.

Hardly responsible:

Let us see why India hasn’t developed so much. What are the reasons for our “failure”? I started googling the reasons for this problem. Side by side, I noted the user comments on some popular forums, watched TV shows (like big fight, we the people etc) that fed users with heated discussions on a given topic. I started getting some good insights into the issue. Some claimed our society doesn’t encourage entrepreneurship; our education system is flawed; we are not original but only try to be copy cats of West. Makes sense, isn’t it. Some commentators went as far as saying that Indians are not team players. One person started with the line ‘The problem with Indians is ……..” Of course he is an Indian. I also learnt that we are short sighted. The above were the comments of people who were more educated and had more awareness to the latest issues and current affairs. Another group claimed that politicians and bureaucracy are the root of all evils and India would be much better off with a dictator. The answers in all I read and heard (in TV, radio) made one thing clear. Something needs to change. TV show hosts asserted that the education system has to change, the outdated laws needed over haul and the politicians need to look at the country with a long term perspective and take care of the fellow citizens.
With so many news papers, channels, forums, websites and few million intellectuals having in-depth insights about any issue in the country, it is hard to believe that we haven’t caught up with the West. By sheer number of smart people we would of course beat any other democratic country in the world in terms of collective knowledge and opinion (of course not in per capita terms). These million smart citizens are more than enough to change the country if not the whole world. But not much seems to be happening. Any reason for this situation? I am getting more confused now. I pause and think. After a while, an analogy strikes me – recollected this from what I heard sometime back from a young monk. Long ago, when the earliest civilizations begun, people started settling down on the river banks so that they get enough water for cultivation. Once in a while, the rivers crossed their boundaries and over flowed destroying the settlements around them. For many ages, people were wailing and cursing about the vagaries of nature. Luckily there was no internet or TV channels and so not many talk shows, hue and cries or blogs :). During that period, a limited few among the population saw this differently. They felt, “I am responsible for things happening around me”. They thought it is their duty to solve this problem. They tried to curtail the river. They tried hard, failed, failed again and finally managed to build dam. It is only because of these few responsible men at each point in human history that we are living in a relatively developed nation/world. The remaining people are just followers. All that the followers do is to talk and crib about the issues so that the responsible guys became aware of the issue. The followers, of course, help build opinion but all of the change happens because of the very few who feel deeper in their heart that they should take responsibility for everything. Today 99% of the big talk and opinion we hear all come from the followers. Unfortunately this post is intended to do the job of a follower with at most sincerity :(
The responsible souls who are less than 1% of the “talking” population take responsibility for our nation’s problems and give a fight. For example, during the early 90s, the media, their audience and every one would have cried about the state of demented women in the streets of Chennai. Only two college girls felt distressed and came forward to help these women and started Banyan*. Today, we all survive and lead a decent to good life only due to the efforts of very few who see the nation’s problems as their own and solve them. And it is also because of them that we hope to have a better life in the future.
* http://www.thebanyan.org/html/about.html

Trade and trade offs:

It was then really interesting to learn about the Ricardian model of comparative advantage. It gives an example of wine and cheese industries in two countries A and B. When they start trade with each other, finally each country would specialize in one of these two industries. A beautiful diagram shows how nations are always better off because of trade. This argument can be extended to ‘n’ nations and eventually we concluded that globalization is the greatest thing that can happen to all of us. However it has now started appealing to me (based on recent events and observations) that there are some broad assumptions which we missed out when we learnt this model:

1. Labor movement across industries is easy: Wine makers can move to cheese industry and cheese producers can produce wine. How far is this generalizable? Can a person with 30 years of experience in manufacturing can learn Java and move to a software company? Even if he is capable of learning, will any one recruit him.? Leave that extreme case. An MBA with just 2 yrs experience in IT will find it extremely extremely difficult to move to Finance though he had specialized in Finance and scored really high. In an ideal world, this guy should still have been given the job with a lower salary that compensates for his inexperience. But no company would do it. Ideally if this happens, there will be 100% employment. Oops, that is another assumption of Ricardo model. In real world there is huge inflexibility in labor movement and 100% employment just doesn’t happen.
2. Over all social welfare ONLY matters: Take an example. An Indian IT company starts exporting software and in turn we import cheaper clothes. If the domestic productivity ratio of software to clothes is 5:1. Now for every employee added to software industry 5 people in the textile industry lose their job to the imports. Ricardo makes a judgment that over all the country’s pie becomes bigger though trade creates winners as well as losers. When a country moves up in value chain, the effect (livelihood and basic needs) on the losers (textile workers in this example) is much larger than the gain produced for the winners (who may buy a luxurious good).
3. Taxation and redistribution is efficient: Economists would say that trade creates bigger pie and so through proper redistribution of wealth from winners to losers, people receive more than what they would have without trade. The society as a whole benefits. How easy is the distribution? Who identifies the losers (direct as well as indirect)? How long would the redistribution happen? Hard questions. And in all practical sense, this doesn’t work.
4. No politics, only economics: Lets go back to our wine and cheese example. Country A specializes in wine and B in cheese. People in respective countries switch industries and they live happily. After few years, there is a political problem or a natural disaster or cows don’t produce enough milk ;) (a supply shock) in country B and it doesn’t produce enough cheese even for itself. Ideally consumers either in A or B can consume whatever is produced based on their buying capability. But B bans exports to help its citizens! Now what will people in A do? They cant start producing cheese as they have sold off the equipments, lost all knowledge to produce cheese. Even if they start again now, it may take few years to produce on a large scale. If this is the case for trade between just 2 countries, imagine a truly globalized world. Every day your purchases would be subject to price fluctuations due to some thing happening in a country whose name you wouldn’t even have heard before. Does this sound familiar? Remember the recent global food crisis and the effect it has everywhere. The globalized world can be compared to a human body with each part specializing in some function. When one important part fails, the whole body can go to stand still.

This means that there are some trade offs with trade and globalization. Its upto the individual nations and societies to decide what is good for them. The models (in fact economists) aren’t necessarily the best judges. And why didn't we ask these questions when we were taught Global economics? That is a different question.

Penetration of technology and not the minds:
Well, evolution keeps continuing its course. We have automated many many routine tasks, bridged information gaps and now we boast of using our brains to think sharp and enjoy life rather than wasting time on mundane and low value activities. But what is the flip side. Critics complain about materialism and how modern life has in fact screwed the pristine life of the older days. Does this argument have merit? Why not? I am not going to try to look at this problem comprehensively in this blog. Let us look at only the following issues: Rising crime, terrorism and suicide rates, addiction towards consumption, moral decline in teenagers.
Who are all the affected players? The poor, the uneducated and unemployed youth and the directionless teenagers. Two main causes seem to appeal to me: One clear reason is their integration to their society is less. I am discussing the other reason here:
First the description:
The poor – No clear opportunities to relinquish poverty and the government’s reforms fall behind the average growth.
Children/teenagers – Just into the ‘real’ world after spending only fraction of the life in protected environment. Due to lack of experiencing different possibilities, they are more driven by instincts and fancy rather than rational thinking.
Unemployed youth - A life to live but no opportunities
Employed but hapless consumers – Earn money but not mentally trained.

The same set of 'commons' existed in the olden days but created far less trouble to the society. They existed, rebelled but their impact was well controlled.
Now we started progressing. Well developed minds invented all the tools for the modern era. They transferred their tools and technology to the next generations. However they failed to create a system that transferred their well ‘developed’ brains or thinking to all human beings of next generations. Now, the commons are left with technology but less of developmental thinking. Reexamining them,
Poor – In the older age, no car or cell phone meant less trouble. When the poor got a car (in American context) and even a cell phone for cheaper prices, he just did not what to do. Neither did some one come up with a mechanism to save them. Being a common, he gets exploited. He finds that those devices are useful to steal or commit a crime and collaborate with other of his type of commons.
Unemployed children/youth – A 15 year old boy in Tanzania is carrying a grenade launcher; thanks to the technological development and education deprivation that stopped the natural development of his ‘common’ sense.
Teenagers – Unlimited internet, innovation in drug trafficking, mobile technology, organized sector expansion of pubs, clubs-They get access to all of these when their mind has not yet developed to make a right or wrong decision. When parents couldn’t help the situation, the kids loose track.
Consumers – Thanks to the advanced distribution, promotion and pushing effort of corporations. Consumers are made to feel inferior without using the corporation’s goods and need to establish their value by consuming these goods. With in few cycles of consumption, we fail to differentiate ourselves from the object we consume and get addicted to these. Only a developed and rational mind can keep itself away from the effects of over consumption. How often do we wonder how advanced American population reelected Bush? Science has penetrated the population but thinking skills have not been transferred.
Access to technological advancement without equal growth in human development (rational) or knowledge will lead to chaos and misuses of technology. No wonder this gets dubbed as fault of materialism.

Ant and Grasshopper Part II:
The other version of the story..
The story in the previous post goes on till the grasshopper makes mistakes and pays for it. Then what happens?
Ants in their next season start to work hard and accumulate more wealth. They now have the capital and thrive with a combination of hard work and capital. The capital helps them to grow on a larger scale and perform only the smarter tasks. With in few generations, they become affluent group in the society. In the mean while, the grasshoppers suffer for all the mistakes committed by their forefathers. The ants get high quality education and get to do high value work. They employ the grasshoppers to serve them and work in their fields or at home. As more time passes by, the grasshoppers were made to believe that they were always inferior to ants and their primary duty is to serve the ants and get good name from them. The ants teach their children about new things and they frequently come in contact with other societies and update their skills. Ants are now a greatly networked society and they get guidance and help from other affluent ants. Ants shape their own life and dream big. Consider even a poor ant which does not have the kind of money that his fellow ants have. This ant’s kid’s role model is her uncle’s close friend’s brother (another ant) who is highly educated, has great deal of knowledge, has great reputation, earns lot of money and has travelled to different places and countries. The kid ant dreams of becoming like him and move forward. However the grasshopper does not even know of any one who he can aspire to become. Sad part is that he doesn’t know that he needs to dream**. All he hears from his community is about his great grandfather who worked very hard in the fields and won the appreciation of his employer ants. At the best, he aims to become like his grandfather and to serve his masters (the ants) better.
After many generations forward, few of noble ants realize the inequality among the ants and grasshoppers (notice that it takes an ant to realize that there is inequality). They undertake the social cause and try to improve the standard of grasshopper’s life. These affluent ants initiate social change and provide education to the grasshoppers. The grasshoppers that are now enrolled to school find it extremely difficult to learn. After all, with 20 generations of doing coolie work, their brain cells have stopped developing and this has passed through genes across generations. They are not able to cope up to the requirements of learning and are not able to compete with the ants. Seeing this, the altruistic ants proposed reservation for grasshoppers. The reservation process kicks of well and around 5-10% of the grasshoppers get benefited. In couple of generations, these 5-10% grasshoppers are out of ignorance, have a great standing in the society and are out of their community. They see new world, network with ants and see no differences between them and ants. But they still enjoy reservation in the system. These grasshoppers exploit the reservation system and take it for granted. They successfully prevent the other 90% grasshoppers from getting higher education. They also take strong political positions and try to keep their reservation status.
The majority of ants see reservation as injustice and find their way out of the country. Be it poor or rich, the ant community is well informed and find opportunities abroad and leave to freedom land. They scorn the government policies and vow not to come back. However, the 90% grasshoppers have no way leaving the country or finding new opportunities. They still remain ignorant without knowing their purpose of existence.

** - Acknowledgement of contribution from Srinath Rajaram, my friend at ISB who made me realize that underprivileged people do not know how to dream.

Ant & Grasshopper:
Below is one of the interesting forwards I got from a friend at ISB. It is true no doubt and one of the prime reasons why any socialist or communist country failed in the modern times. However, I am planning to another version of the same truth soon.... Watch out for that post also....

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold. Modern Version
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's house. Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter. Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticizes the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper. The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance). Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for "Bharat Bandh" in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers. Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath '. Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the ' Prevention of Terrorism against Grasshoppers Act' [POTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the winter. Arjun Singh makes 'Special Reservation ' for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services. The Ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, it's home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV. Arundhati Roy calls it ' A Triumph of Justice'. Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice '. CPM calls it the ' Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden ' Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly. Many years later... The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley. 100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India ... As a result of loosing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the Grasshoppers, India is still a developing country!!!

Progression of Human life: How far can that go?

Around the third term at ISB, I got fed up hearing about, ‘India is growing growing n growing’ almost every day. I was honestly not sure of what this growth translated into or what it is supposed to do since we are pursuing it very actively. The biggest question now become, ‘what does growth or development mean?’ Does it mean we become more intelligent and life becomes convenient? Another way of saying this is, we become more loaded with information and need to stretch a lot (urban life) or we become lazy.
Since there was always the other side of the growth, I began to wonder what it means in plain terms. Luckily, there comes Shiva Kumar to teach GSBC who defined growth from the eyes of the citizens of the world and showed the millennium goals. This made sense. They need to have economic freedom, access to health care, proper sanitation, basic education, equal rights etc. He said giving all human being the choice or the opportunity is termed as human development.
We all started as farmers, became industrial workers (remember Chaplin’s ‘Modern times?’) and now knowledge workers. The goal of this knowledge revolution is based on removing information asymmetry and providing everyone (at least a large fraction of them) access to all knowledge in the world. Though IT has changed our lives for ever, we can still see that there is great deal of penetration that is still required. Do I have the expert system that can respond with accurate information that I need to build my career path? How many times, we use the combination of Google, research databases and despair that we do not precisely get the information we need. Does RFID create the most perfect supply chain? Still information gaps exist in large scale. Information is either in people’s minds or becomes too difficult to track. Long way to go! As we moved along, division of labour became the key. When more people are empowered with knowledge, generalists are hard to survive. In future, even companies may have to specialize and even CEO of these companies may need to be some kind of specialist (these trends have started appearing in technology industry).
Assuming we reach a stage, where there is perfect information in the world, perfect organic solidarity in terms of division of labour, and all millennium goals have been achieved, what next?

I am trying hard to predict the next wave of human progress or growth. But unfortunately nothing comes to my mind. Couple of things that lingers in my mind: This ultra-modern man will be very sophisticated at the same time tied up to machines (Am I cynical here?). We did not remain as farmers. We moved ahead and became industrial labourers, managers, scientists and innovators. So I guess there will be new roles created for man when the appropriate time arrives. I wish I foresee the future man.

Coordination failure: I keep hearing that markets to fail at least sometimes the biggest one so far seem to be the global warming and pollution effects on the earth.

There have been two schools of thought one that says that humans can self-regulate themselves provided they are trained and educated and the other which asserts that Humans basically can never be trusted. Hence the society needs strong institutions to sustain itself.

This is a story from one of my friend studying in a premier B-school in US. They had a situation that showcased that strong institutions are needed even in places of highest form of elitists and coordination failures are set to occur when there is information asymmetry in an unregulated market. They seemed to have a take home exam for one of their courses. They were given one week time to complete the exam but the exam should be taken in a continuous stretch of two hours (without break). The course participant is not supposed to see the question paper before he begins his 2-hrs exam. No one will monitor the person taking the exam. It was agreed that the students should not disclose or discuss the questions with each other.

Before the exam was distributed, the professor proved using game theory matrix that cheating in the exam was the dominant strategy for a student irrespective of whether other students cheat or not. Hence a self-utility maximizing rational being will always need to cheat. But he trusted everyone and expected us to prove that institutional control is unnecessary and that every one acting responsibly will produce a collective gain.

But what happened? Coordination failure.

After the papers were evaluated, the class average was abnormally high for such a tough paper. My friend said that the evaluation was lenient. For the few people who got marks way less than average, the professor called them and had asked them to rewrite the exam and awarded them grace marks to pull them closer to average. It was a nice gesture (face saving?) to save the people who honestly followed his instructions.
My guess is that the Prof is authoring some paper on institutions and society and who knows if he is going to use this experiment to support his point! After hearing this from my friend, I have started believing that when the incentive systems are not fair, don’t expect individuals to be fair. If at all people behave different from this thesis, it can be because they were ingrained with these beliefs by their culture or schools or parents or due to the environment they grew up in. Not because of their (Human) Nature? I don’t know.