Its just as the novel fountainhead and Bhagawat gita said: People are more interested in finding problems than in finding solutions. Every of the people I talked to had the same idea. They all hate democracy the way it is, but when a potential new idea is put before them, they never give one argument for it. They never even consider an idea. They are all programmed against change; programmed to be conservative and dogmatic. They do not dream of greatness.
My roommate praveeen, Nikhil Handigol and Tak mama are all the same. I think Vibhav is the same too though he was more worried about "offending" me, so he didn't say it explicitly.
See that you can say many many more, but all those are problems. Is there one solution? Did you ever stop to think that in a system of dictatorship, democracy will never be dreamed of by normal mortals? Did you ever think that a normal mortal would have first discovered fire? Or perhaps invented the wheel? That's what makes u a normal person and distinguishes you from me. You never want to learn. You are not interested in new stuff. You just keep using your intelligence to find problems with great suggestions and put them down. You never found one simple solution to the problems defined. You never tried to point out even one merit. Ayn Rand did a great job classifying you people as "second handers" in her classic novel! I understood normal people more by being alone, not socializing and mingling with great people through their thoughts.
There was only one person who really thought it was a great idea. And believe me, he found more faults with this idea than you did. He really criticized my idea. He is going to be the next great man. I can see that clearly! He is now my best friend! Without a doubt! Its so stupid of people to blame an idea without even actively listening to it. What you said are comments. What a great person will ask is questions. He will love the new idea and will work towards making it a reality. He will ask real questions and provide possible approaches.
You think I am so foolish to believe that my idea is perfect? All I pointed out was it was a great idea. I acknowledge that a lot of work needs to be done to make it a reality. After seeing the nature of people as pointed out by Ayn Rand, I really feel sad that I am being utilitarian in my views. Of course I am a selfish person, and helping people makes me happy, therefore I maximize my gain by utilitarian. But it seems that no one is going to listen to me now. The only way that I am going to actually implement the system is by embracing power and influence! The question now is: Do I really want power? I haven't decided yet, and I don't know if I ever will in a life-time.
Anyway, to answer your question of fairness, I never denied the opportunity for the poor people to use their talents and gain influence/popularity. You know why Russia lost economically to US. They interpreted fairness as equal wealth to all. Therefore the intelligent people like you didn't have the incentives to use their full potential. See what happens when you give fools as much weight as intelligent people? That's definitely not fair!
There is some philosophical question as to why the most intelligent person should come to power. The answer I have is vague: Once a person comes to power, he has everything, his personal assets are taken care of. His only incentive then is to make the country prosper. As an intelligent person, he will maximize the benefit to the country (measured by total happiness of all people). As an utilitarian I maximize my happiness if that happens. Of course, you are free to criticize it, but know beforehand that I wont accept any criticism unless the first dumbest suggestion is improved upon. In other words, I have no business with fools! I would rather live alone in a world of dreams! After all everyone knows, only fails to acknowledge as an adult, that dreams are more powerful than reality. How many of you found that all your sexual fantasies are more real in a dream than in reality? How many of you saw that the aeroplane was first invented in the dream of Wright brothers? How many of you really love being a superman or batman, but dismiss it simply because its a dream and its not real? Why don't you be a child and work to achieve that dream? Isn't it your happiness that you ultimately have to maximize? Don't dreams do that for you? Why do you impose on yourself, the chains of reality and restrict your passions to accommodate what's real? Now prove that you dream great enough to respond to me, and then reply. PS: Muski, I know you are brilliant, probably even more brilliant than me, but you dont think big. You are only as big as your thoughts allow you to be. Therefore, your talents are all wasted in criticizing others' dreams. You will never achieve my greatness even with all that wonderful IQ you have. What a waste! Its not too late however. You are still young. Of course, its pointless arguing against feelings. I have already proved in a previous blogs that feelings are more powerful than reasoning. I don't expect my reasoning to change you. The only reason I offend you right now is because I like you and consider you my friend. I don't mind bearing the stigma of offending you if I know it makes you grow. That's unlike what most people think. Most people are simply afraid of offending others just because its not the societal norm and they are afraid what the society will think of them when they are offended. Oh, when will you ever grow? I expected to have intelligent debates at iitm and Stanford that will help me grow. That's one dream which I want to be a reality. Will it only be partially true?
Muski, You yourself told me you take 1 day to finish a 1 hour job and that you are satisfied with it. You have limited yourself, while I refuse to limit myself. I will keep growing beyond all possible limits. The sky is my limit. That's what my advisor Thomas Cover believes too! Now I really know why he chose me as his student! Its not intelligence that matters, its what you love that really matters.
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Hey Jackie .. I didn't mean to offend you da! Dont take it personally.I just wanted to tell you that i love the fact that we have equal rights and wouldn't want to change it. Thats all wanted to tell you.
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant is that while the solution you proposed can work very well in small sample size where people are all quite aware of whats happening (like in IITM elections etc), whereas in a big developing country it might not work as it can be abused and manupilated by anti social elements.
I am not being conservative or dogmatic da. Take it this way, you propose a new model for democracy as you believe existing one is not good enough. I believe existing one is quite good, in fact its wonderful but only problem is that we are not able to implement it properly. That i think is because the model will work beautifully only when the conditions are right for it (like social, economic and political equality) which is far from truth in case of our country.
And seriously da, noway i am supporting dictatorship. I don't know how you got that idea.
I agree with you that an if intelligent person is given priority, he will be more productive than otherwise. But that will be a good idea only if all the intelligent people are good guys. History tells me that's never the case. Power corrupts and more the power, more the people get corrupted.
Dont take my response to your last post as if i wanted to simply criticize you idea just for the fun of it. No, that's not true. Honestly, I just didn't feel comfortable with your idea. I don't like any form of bias, be it separate electorates, reservation, quota or unequal voting rights. It my personal opinion da (and i am open to debate on that) Thats all i wanted to say.
and you didn't offend me at all da. I feel nice that you actually took out time to write a big post in your blog just for me! In fact I feel great :P
Muski
Didn't you read my quote "offended" in quotes? Like I mentioned, a great friend is one who is courageous enough to criticize me, unafraid of offending me. What's not great about your argument is there is no single merit of the idea mentioned. I observed that people are simply reluctant to new ideas. When there is no idea, people say "This system sucks". Whenever someone proposes a new idea, people always say "Look the present system is so good, why do you want a new system? How will you implement it?" etc. What they don't realize is that the current system is atleast as complicated starting from the caveman era in terms of implementation difficulties. They never dream. When the wright brothers dreamed of the aeroplane, they were ridiculed. People were later forced to eat their own words. It is hoped that people will become wiser and learn to respect new ideas. Instead they only sneer at new ideas and at dreamers. People are as foolish as ever. They live in their everyday world. What concerns them more is the immediate. By the way, the long post is as much for myself as it is for you.
ReplyDelete@Muski: You learnt from history that power corrupts. I learnt from history that power attracts the corruptible.
ReplyDeleteMy system should be looked at in depth because it assumes that the corruptible seeks power and it gives great incentives for the corruptible selfish person to use his powers for the welfare of the country! It's like the invisible hand of economics that assumes selfish rational players and pushes them towards optimal growth! Now in my models, you want corruptible rulers to come to power!
I know that a new system takes time to be implemented. All I wanted was to point out that what I pointed out deserves more attention and focus than it gets right now. What people think instead is that I am in megalomania. They give some arguments to dump a new idea immediately, not caring to give it the respect it deserves.
It is true that only 1 in a million ideas may actually work out and that what I proposed must undergo numerous changes before implementation. However, the fundamental proposition seems insightful and promising!
Its funny how you all preach equality the way you do now. You obviously protested against the government when it tried to implement reservation for the lower class. The common man obviously believes OBCs are underrepresented and must have more admits in IITs. We were against the ruling and we protested intensly! The government however went ahead and passed the law hurting the country because it needed votes of the common man.
ReplyDeleteImagine what would happen if the government instead needed the votes of the influential men! Such a move will reduce the votes from influential people and will therefore reduce the chances of the government coming to power again!
Assuming that power corrupts and assume the government acts in its own self-interest, my model maximizes the welfare of the society by giving incentives to the corrupt government to help the society. I love the fact that power corrupts! Let the invisible hand that my proposition create take care of us! Not the corrupt government.
I will jump into this fray if only to vent my current frustration with grad life :P
ReplyDeleteHere are some questions that I have.
1. Your idea is based on the Google ranking model. Can you prove that it is the most effective way of search?
2. Your whole model also implicitly assumes that every person involved behaves rationally, which is not realistic.
For example you assume that if an intelligent person comes to power, then his only incentive then is to make the country prosper. Why?
If I was in power, I will ensure that the influential people whose votes count more are the ones who need to be kept happier.
PS: If my friends think this is a fray, I feel so bitter. I wanted a productive argument here. I was just pointing out the flaws in attitude of people who are more interested in criticizing a new idea than in learning its merits/demerits thoughtfully. I recommend reading "Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand to know how I FEEL. If you naively assume my feelings are so simplistic that I will feel "offended", then you are wrong. Feelings are more complicated than a binary representation of "Offended" vs "Not offended".
ReplyDeleteHere are the answers that I know now:
1. Page rank may not be the most effective model for search. It fails and can be manipulated as google observed. That's why they tweak their algorithm and keep the tweaks a secret so that it cannot be manipulated easily. Google's problem I believe though is to associate page rank with keywords. The relevance of keywords is matched by machines and not by humans. Machines always go wrong because they dont understand the true meaning and context of arguments. I ONLY CLAIM WEIGHTED VOTES IS BETTER THAN NON-WEIGHTED VOTES AND THAT MY PROPOSITION SEEMS TO FUNCTION WELL IN PRACTICE.
As you clearly saw in the iit OBC reservation case, making the ignorant happy will mean making decisions that are not really thoughtful (like implementing reservation for OBCs in IIT, though everyone knows it subtracts benefits in the long run and even the poor people are affected. INTUITIVELY (though I don't have the proof) MY MODEL ASSUMES THAT INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE MAKE RATIONAL DECISIONS AND PENALIZE PEOPLE WHO MAKE IRRATIONAL DECISIONS BY REDUCING THEIR INFLUENCE.
2. Yes, irrationality may cause a problem as it does in economics. I haven't thought about where I assume rationality or irrationality though. We need to study the system in more detail to understand its effects. Also,
Yes, the system seems to be unfair, but my defense as before is that THOSE WHO ARE NOT INFLUENTIAL (not having followers) ARE NOT DENIED THE OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME INFLUENTIAL. They can always attract intelligent and influential followers with their arguments and practices. Then they will find their voice and they will be happy.
Its the same argument in economics. No poor man is denied the opportunity to become rich. Well, its not entirely true of our society, I know. There is always a trade-off between efficiency and equity. My model is an efficient government, preserving equality only in the sense that everyone gets an equal opportunity to become influential. It makes the best happier than the worst. Therefore it gives incentives to people to become the best, rather than stay the worst. Therefore it improves the human race as a whole by natural selection.
Dude! Nothing personal there. By "fray," I meant the debate/discussion.
ReplyDeleteIts great to see a new idea, and we all appreciate it.
Chill out dude.
Well, I just made an observation that Ayn Rand is correct in her assessment of people.
ReplyDeleteI realize that it is in the interest of a species' self-preservation to be skeptical about new idea. After all you cannot expect a normal man to want to experiment with fire and discover that it can make a delicious meal. If that were true, we as human beings wouldn't be here after all. Our survival dictates the attitude that I observed in people.
I am different from most people, so I got used to the fact that people question new ideas.
You must know that even I have my share of skepticism about the idea. After all, I too have survival instincts programmed in to me. That's why I suggested we implement it first in MMORPGs and in college/hostel elections and see how it works. People immediately thought I wanted to go global with this idea and in their usual style tried to criticize the idea, not seeing a single merit in it.
No Jackie. I am not saying "look the present system is so good, why do you want a new system? How will you implement it?" or anything like it. I am saying existing system is good but we have not implemented it well. I think it can work. But the conditions are not favorable for it yet. Maybe its a better idea to work on those lines than to change the system itself. You will have to agree that this system was never implemented in a condition suitable for it and has never been. So lets give it its due by running it in ideal conditions before we get rid of it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, your post got me thinking and I'll try to come up with something on lines of what i was thinking as soon as i get time. Will get back to you on that.And also "My system should be looked at in depth because it assumes that the corruptible seeks power and it gives great incentives for the corruptible selfish person to use his powers for the welfare of the country!". I don't get it. explain.
Muski
http://muskopia.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/democracy-revisited/
ReplyDeleteOn criticisms of democracy, check out my blog, the "Anti-Democracy Agenda":
ReplyDeletewww.anti-democracy.com
Cheers
@Muski: What is the assumption in democracy? That a corrupt government will be punished by people in the forthcoming elections! But why does that not take place? Precisely because people are not rational and the corrupt government is confident that people can be convinced anyway, whatever actions it undertakes. So what is the solution? Allow the votes of intelligent, more politically involved people to give more votes. My proposal is a simple implementation which does that. I assume a person in power wants to be in power for the next term as well, so these are the incentives of the corrupt government. I explained above why reservation was passed by the government with all political parties supporting it. Simply because opposing it means losing votes. Rich people cannot be influenced easily. The poor can be. So their best strategy is to make the poor people vote for them in the forthcoming elections. That doesn't always lead to the best policy for the country. Wont the situation be otherwise if they knew that convincing the poor, yet ignorant people will be easy but useless?
ReplyDelete@Erich: Your book sounds interesting. I must see if the faults outlined in your book can be solved by my new form of democracy where voters are not weighted equally. I am interested in your brief comments too.