Image by peretzp via Flickr

Shocked at first, and then denial , but reading further today’s newspaper was of those days when a person wakes to one such an everyday sombre public story, yet so personal.

Aaron Swartz, is no stranger to those following technology. Things he did are the heroics a modern-day super hero do – solve a problem of increasing content by co-authoring RSS specifications; open source millions of federal court documents buried down under; unleash even more mass of scientific material by publishing closed access JSTOR archive papers defying authorities; raising public action successfully campaigning against SOPA; founding Reddit, where millions converge every day.

So, it was shocking to see his death not by somebody else, but coming from his own self at the age of 26.

There seems to be a significant under current in those people I really admire. Starting from David Foster Wallace to Tony Scott – whose Spy Game is a movie I am very fond of – now to Aaron, it seems I prefer to like people going through very powerful emotional turmoil and at the end give up life committing suicides. I know that there is a hindsight bias here, but there are more people alive in the world I like whom I don’t want to see fizzing out like the ones above. I hope people don’t take it seriously what Kurt Cobain wrote in his suicide note decades back the following words before he shot himself : “It is better to burn out than to fade away.”

Suicide, is another topic which should be given more prominence but is hardly given considering the fact it is mostly unnoticed as it happens in “mind” and there aren’t visible clues available unless carefully noticed. Suicide kills more young adults only next to maternity related deaths for women and accident related deaths for men in India. Definitely, suicide is another topic to be added to the roster of “significant issues” in lieu of wasteful political debates and scintillating Bollywood/celebrities coverage bombarding the Indian television screens.

The Guardian quoted the statement given by Aaron’s family, “Aaron’s death in not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach.”

As Aaron said, ” Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves.” It is really painful to see someone brilliant – in fact, an enfant terrible going by what Aaron had done in a span of handful years – heeding to Plato’s injunction, “The punishment suffered by the wise who refuse to take part in Government, is to suffer under the Government of bad men”, ” making an attempt to change the modern powerful structures, go down.

RIP.

P.S : One of the talks by Swartz How to Get A Job Like Mine, basically his personal story, bookmarked in my folder some time back, is a real classic with “just the facts.”

But it looks like the rules of the game are changing.

Facebook just crossed a billion users. Although it is a great news for the company and its investors, not for the average Joe like you and me. Just like scoring the first 50% marks for an answer is always easier than scoring the next 50% marks, Facebook has to struggle in its ways to reach to the next billion or so. Because that involves raising incomes of the people to make them use internet, providing suitable platform like infrastructure-in developing countries, for example – and making it real cheap because accessibility and constantly being online are the buzzword for increased revenues opportunities. Not to forget that one in eight is chronically hungry according to a latest report. When the people are struggling to satisfy their physiological needs, looking at the phenomenon from Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory, will people look forward to satisfy their esteem needs – attracting attention, the affection and ego boosts through likes – shown that Facebook is willing to provide ?

Sadly, Facebook has no control over it. It is equally true that it has to answer its investors for the money they have poured in.

The arrival of ‘promote’ feature – which allows anyone to command a friend’s attention to their content by making it at the top of the ‘News Feed’ paying Facebook – explains this perfectly. Although it is okay with friends doing it, definitely it not for the ‘Pages’ – used by companies for building their brands- doing it. Pages, it was hailed as a good thing for every creator- irrespective of their financial prowess- to reach its fans. A few weeks back, a relatively small content provider depending on the Facebook platform was fuming too, for Facebook has taken sides with other cash-rich corporates as it became one among them by making them pay to reach out to all their fans through Facebook platform.

The fundamental problem with Facebook is two-fold :

1. Assuming everybody acts in a rational manner and in the best interest of others.
2. Assuming everybody plays the game perfectly.

Speaking of the first problem, I am, for instance, quirky when it comes to my usage. Sometimes I feel like sifting through and being delivered the content I have ‘liked’. For example, Troll Football to tickle my funny bone. The other time, I am up in arms when I see those troll content anytime during my usage just because of being fed up with them( this is happening more in the recent times). Similarly, I don’t like Hindi movies ideologically(I must admit that I have poor knowledge of Hindi too). My friends on the other hand like them. My intention would not be to dislike them for their preference but to avoid being part of the situation/discussion when the Hindi movies takes over as the primary point of conversation. I would have easily walked out in the real world never to hear any of that. This is not the case here in Facebook. Things keep coming back to haunt us just because I am also a part of the system in which the conservation happened too.Hindi movies isn’t the only thing I dislike; the list is relatively bigger. Add to that, sometimes I would indeed want to be part of the conservation just being I am interested.

Coming to the second problem, as a normal person, I would expect the best of out any thing I do with.It also is a common thing for my friend too.Some of my friends have lots of time at their disposal; some others, barely few. Spending more time in Facebook, will naturally yield more participation on the part of a system participant- playing the game their way. As as a result, I would be constantly poured in information that I can’t handle- just because I’m friends with somebody. There are few of my friends who come very rarely but would nevertheless participate which would be of interest to me-playing the game my way. But that would just become lost in the woods. How can the problem be solved from my side? The only way to catch that would be to spend a heavy amount of time in Facebook- something that benefits the corporate Facebook when it appears as the increased logged hours in the quarterly statistics and not me. And to make things worse,I have more than 250 friends, for God’s sake!!!

Already we are burdened with the ‘Share’ button that allows at the click a content to be shared anybody likes. That only includes, other person’s photos, for example, but a funny image uploaded by a Page like Troll Football also it is equally applicable. I realize that laughing together at a common thing bonds us, but when the real motive behind using Facebook is keeping a tab on everybody you know about their personal lives and this person is always ‘sharing’ whatever he likes at that moment. Yes, I will realize he is big fan of comedy too in a few days.I will definitely bored of this, if it was not my cup of cake from the beginning.Any ways, to laugh to my heart’s content, may be I could have watched a comedy show which I knew of previously, considering that I act in the rational manner?

Even though many people advice using the tools that have come to us ‘freely’ and has a considerable impact on their significant others in a cautious manner, very few are listening.

Increasing use of groups and lists – comparable to increasing specialization that happens in Riggsian Model of Industrialized society – along with customization options(which are time-intensive to make the best use of them) are solving only some of these, but they are failing in their effort to tackle the problems comprehensively, well, just because- people sometimes act rationally and at times,irrationally.

Twitter, at least , because it deals with 140 characters, gives more power in terms of customization as of now. In spite of this, going to markets in the future can make Twitter a brat, for sure.

And recently, Facebook admitted that only 13% of a person’s friends can see a person’s post. That means,gradually we would be paying facebook to make our present felt there vying with the big corporates who can pay truck loads of money to market their products.

An additional problem, is spite of being a fringe case, creeps in if you are a friends with a person you meet on a regular basis and he is more regular on facebook. Consider an conversation below:

Person A : Hey, we went to < insert a place here > few days back.

Person B : Yes, I know. I saw the photos on Facebook.

Though it is available to respond, “Yes, I saw them. Tell me more about it”, it is not easy to force upon ourselves such behaviour always. By nature, talking to other person is basically out of curiosity to know about other persons lives. But when the juice of the story is known before, I feel it is difficult to pretend a good behaviour.

In the book Never Eat Alone, Keith Ferrazzi tells that relations are built one at a time- something I am increasingly believing to be true. And I remember reading somewhere that a phone call is far better way to connect than most other means and face to face meetings are the best. Reddit founder, kn0thing, talks of making real friends a few years ago.People had friends – and were content -before internet was a rage.

If this is the case, this leaves us wondering that constantly being accessible and in touch with people around us in Facebook is making us feel safe in increasing foul-smelling Earth? Or is the user’s impulsive behaviour -exploited by user himself/herself – is a cause for the increased perception of a bad world around the user ?

In all of these things, rationality and the assumed behaviour of an user who know their limits is implicit – which only a few comprehend.

Nevertheless, Facebook is good for one thing. It is about keeping a tab on the people who have come across a person lives. Additionally, at least most of the people I have heard from, keep an eye of Facebook than e-mail(because I heard it during college days???). I feel e-mail would serve the same purpose too, if only people checked their e-mail as much as they log on to Facebook.

I understand that any business survives only because of money and Facebook is no exception. There is no upfront fee to join Facebook ,which is not good for any business to become privileged so fast, thereby taking a risk to lose some, considering the mission it is undertaking -to help us ‘connect with friends’ – and really making a good shot at mapping human relationships in the internet. At the same time, it has to earn profits, for it’s how corporate entities work. As with any other system, Facebook has its defects and those get propounded by the complex nature of human choices that one gets to exert over on this place. And computation- Facebook’s only tool at its disposal- is relatively a new field , spanning just two hundred years tops. Computation’s sub-fields -Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning(used to predict human choices and behaviour) – are less than five decades old. Humans have, on the other hand, been interacting for more than a million years and human intelligence has been evolving since those times .Sadly, for Facebook it has to accommodate all the other concerns in only one system – a website with URL : facebook.com- it has control over.

Alvin Roth, the recent Nobel Laureate in Economics, was awarded the prize for not just being a by-stander and observing the defects in the functioning of the markets but rectifying them through developing novel models. We can never known of a comparable person who will do the same with Facebook let alone when the event will happen considering the complex nature of human choices.

As a person born in a democratic country having control over the choices I make and the increasing availability of choice in the avenues for interaction(different systems) with other humans we are flooded with and in the light of frustration I am putting up with, will I make a use my choices befittingly ?

Yes,Sir.

While the work they do is might be intrinsically satisfying to them and saves lives etc. , do they get to do something they can claim full credit for?

In case of a writer, behind each page that appears in a book, is the torn/erased words that fails to see the light of the day. Similarly, behind a successful scientist’s successful experiment are untold stories of failure.

Although, the works in both the cases are original,done individually and the rightful claim be demanded, no one can deny the fact that even they are “standing on the shoulders of the giants.”

If such is the case, why can’t I change the ordinary things that I come across everyday? Take for example, the content that is seen on TV. If you happen to know Kannada, it isn’t difficult in realizing the present trend of Kannada TV industry in having a propensity towards bringing in unscientific graphic details i.e. animations, while keeping Indian religious sentiments as its background. Some of them don’t even add value even in respect to knowledge of Indian religious practices,mythology etc. instead  en cashing on the little bit of traditions,belief that a larger amount of population is accustomed to. Why not make a serial similar to Mahabharata that was telecasted at the end of 20th century which not only entertains but also expands our knowledge.

Keeping it aside, why don’t we look at the other locker room ? What if the people simple wanted to spend time ? What if they didn’t care whether the item being telecasted was factually correct or not as long as their entertainment factor( in their perception) remained high ?
Expanding it further, what if they believed that watching news – which would broaden our knowledge – would most of the time feed them depressing,sad items, telecasts and the ‘worldly’ problems which would deteriorate their being further in addition to their already insurmountable problems?

As long as the content producers can milk the rich cows who pay to see the television channels do they care what is being beamed ?

When I can’t even convince my brother of my opinion that watching a movie for the fifth time is futile while he continues to enjoy the time watching it, what can I do about bigger problems that I dream of solving by expecting others to behave in a co-operative way?

But there is always one thing I can do : decide and do what I want to just like any other. And pay attention to what I what do (Thanks for this tip, DFW).

So, here it is, writing about the issue to my heart’s content, as always.

Considering the year I am graduating, there are approximately 700 people passing  out. If each of them has 4 years of memories of this college, then 2800 years is the total experience the collective graduating year students have gone through and experienced. It would take a single person nearly 28 lives to live all of them. How many hours of those years did we share with even our closest friends? If that is less than half, what about the acquaintances? In short, we really know a lot less about people whom we think we really know them better.

Proceeding along this line I was confounded about the hard limit each person has regarding the  community he/she is associated. Internet has found homes to many including myself. Considering it doesn’t exist, how many do live a life that is completely outside the community boundaries? A community is not something a person is attached to by birth, rather it has to do with the surroundings(school,college one went to, places he/she worked). It is amazing to see how difficult it is to break the barrier (like fall in love with someone outside the school/college/university one studies in).

At the end of the day, we laugh, party,share our feelings with the same people who are in our stream/profession or have the same interests. Is the bar to high to cross? Think about journalists or diplomats or programmers. Who do they spend their free time with? Every time I read/hear about someone, it falls within the same realm of people and the same interest/profession reason I mentioned above. Very few raise a toast with people from other professions etc. Clubs, associations might have seen the light of the day for this particular obstacle to fall apart.

When I think of all these, it makes me really curious what my friends, people I know and myself go on to do in their life and whom they chose for a company – that includes choosing a life-partner.

Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained.

                                                                               Joseph Roux

So, can anyone put down something they have personally learned in the four years in one post ? I am going to attempt just that with a bit of personal experience involved. For four years, four thoughts. That’s it.

Let’s roll.

1. I have No Idea how Someone Else Feels.

 Every year and every batch gladly proclaim : “We rock” , “Batch of X is the greatest” etc. I stopped doing it for the reason that I have absolutely no idea whatsoever how somebody else has gone through all this. They might have had the greatest time or were sunken into abyss the whole time. We have all been thinking from our own perspective our whole life. May be we feel that and showcase it, but almost everytime it is far from truth. Read the brilliant article by David Foster Wallace on this here.

2. The Best Things Don’t Happen to the Best People Always.

I have seen it many a times. Someone who has worked really hard fails to get an output. People who don’t deserve a thing are hailed! The fact is that these things are one off things, but gets repeated all the time. All I can do is to make sure when I think I deserve anything, I shouldn’t repent not getting it and all the same time worrying and bitching about others for things that has happened to them.

3. The World is Biased.

When I came to college, I had an initial goal of knowing everyone in my year, at least to an extent. Now, it seems a really far-fetched idea. While some don’t care, with others it seems to be that the conversations don’t work out well. Did you read what I just said? That’s the bias(from my side) I am talking about.

What threw me off was the close circle of friends each person has. It seems that there are well-defined boundaries which are rigidly protected. So don’t be upset when what really deserves to be done can’t be because of the inherent complexity that arises out of friendships. Just use it to your advantage[see P.S Note #1]

4. Knowing when I have Stumbled.

Alan Kay once mentioned, “Perspective is worth 80 IQ points”. This lovely quote applies to anyone involved in a research and stuck in a problem to a student who has made a move but is unsure of it. The ‘move’ can be anything from poking the nose in the middle of someone else’s conversation to whether does it really make any sense about a question to someone. Backtracking is one thing no one tell about because going back is not particularly entertained in the modern world.

Lastly as a bonus, very few people take anything seriously as every one is bored of their existence and constantly upset about their lives. That’s why we are always wanting to be with the person who is ‘funny’ or in need of jokes just to laugh. In all our lives, it’s the one thing look towards. So the next time you want to speak about anything, put it in funny terms. In all probability, everyone around will like it.

P.S : There a few countable things that have turned the tide for me. Here it goes.

1. Gregory Rader’s answer on Quora.

The solution for the INTP is to accept the reality that they do need social interaction and meaningful relationships in order to live fulfilled lives.  Having established that conviction, the research project can begin.  INTPs will intellectually study social dynamics in the same way they would any other subject.  Eventually they will construct mental models that are personally satisfying, allowing them to reengage with the social world and comprehensively explain/justify their mode of doing so.  One of the interesting results of this learning curve is that INTPs can be grouped into two relatively distinct categories:

• those who are painfully socially awkward

• those who have gone down the rabbit hole and who can deconstruct social dynamics far more effectively than the people for whom it came naturally

2. These sentences in Quiet by Susan Cain:

But how to get from A to B? “I studied social dynamics, I guarantee more than anyone you’ve ever met,” Alex told me. He observed the way people talked, the way they walked—especially male dominance poses. He adjusted his own persona, which allowed him to go on being a fundamentally shy, sweet kid, but without being taken advantage of. “Any hard thing where you can get crushed, I was like, ‘I need to learn how to do this.’ So by now I’m built for war. Because then people don’t screw you.”

Alex also took advantage of his natural strengths. “I learned that boys basically do only one thing: they chase girls. They get them, they lose them, they talk about them.

3. This post on lastpsych especially these words at the end:

“But… why am I this way?”  That question is a narcissistic defense.  It doesn’t want an answer, it wants you to keep asking the question. 

 “I’m a good person, I just am making bad choices.”  Wrong.  You’re not a good person until you make good choices. Until then you are chaos.

 And you know it.

4. This question and the comments on MetaFilter. Specifically this line:

Even if you master a certain domain that gives you cachet within a certain sphere, there are other domains and other spheres, and you will never master them all.

All these because of a simple and free scientific test I took months ago understanding really what I am. Do you really know who you are ? Go find out now.

P.P.S : Put those belief in the character traits of a person based on constellation signs to the dustbin.

Excerpt #1:

The Internet, happily, does not so far seem to be antagonistic to
literacy. Researchers recently gave Michigan children and teen-agers
home computers in exchange for permission to monitor their Internet use.
The study found that grades and reading scores rose with the amount of
time spent online. Even visits to pornography Web sites improved
academic performance. Of course, such synergies may disappear if the
Internet continues its YouTube-fuelled evolution away from print and
toward television.

Excerpt #2:

After all, there is no one looking back at the television viewer. He is alone, though he, and his brain, may be too distracted to notice it. The reader is also alone, but the N.E.A. reports that readers are more likely than non-readers to play sports, exercise, visit art museums, attend theatre, paint, go to music events, take photographs, and volunteer. Proficient readers are also more likely to vote. Perhaps readers venture so readily outside because what they experience in solitude gives them confidence. Perhaps reading is a prototype of independence. No matter how much one worships an author, Proust wrote, “all he can do is give us desires.” Reading somehow gives us the boldness to act on them. Such a habit might be quite dangerous for a democracy to lose.

Excerpts from The New Yorker

The gluttony of information, the pressure to consume them all will take a
toll someday, I believe. Instead one could also make use of Twitter to
follow only a few, far away from the glare of following a number of
celebrities or trending topics such as @BronxZoosCobra .

What I failed to notice was the inability on my side to understand how Twitter works. Also in that same post I found an interesting statistic.

According to a recent finding, 50% of the tweets consumed are produced
by top 20,000 elite users. Leading the pack are media outlets, which are
followed by celebrities.

Devoting some time to see how things work, I made a few observations. And I hereby present it.
How people use it:
1. Running Commentary: These include the ones from media outlets(mostly news) or people who are really jobless or which are from people employed to do it, who keep bombarding with tweets in minutes interval. Want a taste? Try Alyssa Milano.
2. Conversational: Some use it for conversing with the people. Mostly it will be replies to some tweets or tweets that contain answers to some questions.
3. No Non-sense 140 characters: Insightful comments or links.Some just tweet very important things that matters.
4. Group Chat : It’s very cool for group broadcasting which puts other similar services to shame. Just take of group of friends with very different handles from their reality identity and just follow and be followed in a small group of friends. Result: Something that is replacement of conversing in a room. The reason which we can believe is that the Twitter is the best possible medium for shared experience(They can hang out on IRC’s too. But sadly many aren’t interested and the ease of using Twitter with a multliplicity of devices overwhelms IRC).

Many a times, the third type leads to second type.

There’s an interesting presentation about using Twitter here.

After all this, I will just be an enlightened user. If you are like me for whom the constant anxiety of checking for new tweets is less interesting than obsessiveness towards unfettered attention ,don’t you know what you like?

Paul Erdos, has to his credit the highest number of contributions in Mathematical field authoring more than 1500 mathematical articles, collaborating with 500 other collaborators.Euler published more papers, while Euler published more pages says Wikipedia.

Why is Erdos brought in from nowhere?

In order to understand, we should now about their background first. Jobs, was put for adoption on birth, walked a few miles to eat at Hare Krishna Temple in his early days, slept on the floors,dropped out of college afterwhile, then went back to Silicon Valley attending HomeBrew Club meetings. The rest is History beginning with the introuduction of Apple-I.

Erdos never married in his lifetime.

The above description sketches the humble circumstances in the beginning days of Jobs. Armed with only time to his credit, he spent it wisely and on the things that mattered to him(He mentions in his Stanford Commencement Speech of 2005).Erdos on the other hand, presents himself who devoted much of his lifetime to advancing the field of Mathematics.

Jobs represents a being who can reach the very high levels when one is passionate and not bogged down by any other pressures. It speaks about a person who had pure passion with adequate time to understand, perfect the product, realize the dreams he dreamt. They are many incidents which includes his attitude to care of the slightest of judgements about the appearance of icon even on a Sunday.

Similarly, Erdos by staying as a Bachelor found immense amount of time to pursue his ideas and formulate them.

Richard Feymann, in one of his interviews, speaks of elongated periods of time required to develop an idea. He calls himself a ‘selfish’ who is willing to do his Physics.

Jobs and Erdos will remain for ages and represent a class of people who reached the epitome by devoting their life to what they wished, with time used judiciously as a potent weapon.