Month: October 2007

What and How

Mr Adam Smith

It is not just an article of faith among economists (such as yours truly) that markets allocate resources most efficiently under a set of set of assumptions; it has been mathematically proved by theoreticians and empirically demonstrated in thousands of well-documented instances. However, that does not make the proposition that markets work better than other mechanisms – such as command and control – any more intuitive or easy for people to appreciate. It is easy to misunderstand, misinterpret, and often misrepresent.
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Creative Commons License

I am often asked by people if they can re-publish my blog posts. Most of what you read on this blog is original in the sense that I write the stuff and therefore by common convention, automatically the copyright to the material belongs to me. I have the freedom to assign rights to my work to others of course. There is an extremely flexible mechanism which has been developed for this purpose and I think it is worthwhile for us to become familiar with it — or if you already know it to some extent, revising your understanding of it. I am referring to the Creative Commons, an institution which is attempting to (and has succeeded to a marvelous degree) create a lot of middle ground between the polar extremes of “All Rights Reserved” — generally denoted by the (C) sign — and “Public Domain” — where the author has no rights at all.

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Non-duality Cartoons

Philosophically, I belong to the Advaita Vedanta school of thought (and many other schools as well). Check out the Non-Duality Cartoons site. (hat tip: Amar K).

The Age of Profound Ignorance

Perhaps you have read it before on this blog. Now “The Age of Profound Ignorance” is available to a wider readership on LiveMint.com. (If the previous link does not work, please use this one.)
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Gore and the Nobel Peace Prize

Does anyone, other than the recipients and the Nobel Prize committee, take the Peace Prize seriously any more?
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You See Berkeley

UC Berkeley on YouTube. My alma mater.

Now you can virtually attend many of the lectures and events at UC Berkeley. I will miss Berkeley a little less because of this.

Here’s a video on “Energy Self-sufficiency in the 21st Century.” A bunch of Nobel Prize winning guys discussing that issue.

The Rs 1 Lakh car from the Tatas

I have been reading about the Rs 1 Lakh (about US$2,500) car that Tata Motors is planning on selling soon.

It scares me witless. These days, oil is selling for around US$85 a barrel. India imports most of its fossil fuel requirements. It is a poor country and cannot afford high priced oil — and oil is going to become increasingly costly because demand will continue to rise and supply will continue to fall. That is Econ101. India is also a very small country relative to its population. With 17 percent of the world’s population and 2 percent of the world’s land area, land is at a premium in India unlike say in the US (where the population density is a tenth of what it is in India.) You cannot just have cars: you need fuel and you need space to use the cars in. It is insane to not do basic arithmetic (“Those who refuse to do arithmetic are doomed to speak nonsense”) and realize that cars are not the solution to India’s predicament regarding transportation within its cities.
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Success

“To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who’s the boss? — Part 2

When a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees are pockets. Thus goes a well-worn Zen Buddhist saying. Our perceptions of the external world are filtered through our internal desires and motivations. This process is not linear; a powerful feedback mechanism is involved. How we apprehend the world out there depends on what our internal model of the external world is; and our internal model gets modified with fresh inputs from our filtered apprehension of the world. Regardless of which came first – whether we start off with an internal model and then examine the world, or whether we examine the external world first without prejudice and only later build an internal model – the cycle once initiated continues for the rest of an individual’s life. Who we are dictates how we perceive the world to be; how we perceive the world to be dictates who we are in the continual process of becoming.
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Who’s the boss?

The other day I received a forwarded email informing me that in Mumbai there is a traffic law which requires that a taxi driver has to comply with a request — no, not request but rather a demand — for service. Here’s what the email said:

Do you know, Rickshaw & Taxi Drivers do not have a right to say NO. So remember that each time the rickshaw/taxi driver tells you a NO, take down his vehicle registration number, note the time date and place, please click on the following link and register your complaint.

We have had enough of these guys bullying us around, and refusing to ply specially when its urgent. They have been told that they cannot say a NO to any customer when their meter is FOR HIRE! not even for short or long distances. I’d suggest you stop asking them whether they will take you wherever you wish to go and rather tell them where you want to go. And if they refuse. REGISTER a COMPLAINT. Let’s teach these guys who’s the customer , and who’s the boss!

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