Khudadad's Knols

Autonomous Car Phobia

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 14:41:00 +0000

Autonomous cars are here. Before owning one, I may have developed a phobia of autonomous cars. Consciously, I see it as positive development but unconsciously, I may have a phobia of autonomous cars as my last night's dream indicates.

My Last night's dream;

Tonight, I dreamt my ordinary car had turned autonomous, spiraling into a wild, rebellious frenzy. It taunted me with reckless donut spins on the highway, swerving through oncoming traffic with a mechanical sneer. The doors flung open, only to slam shut as I lunged to climb inside, the car screeching away in defiance. Its headlights flickered on and off like a mischievous wink, while the windows rolled up and down in a manic rhythm. It veered into strangers’ driveways, tires screeching, as if mocking my every attempt to catch it. My heart pounded as I sprinted after it, desperate to stop the chaos before it harmed anyone, but the rogue machine danced out of my reach.

This is what Ai thinks of my dream; nothing in this image resembles to my dream

3 Key Lessons from Vikings: AI Critiques My Takeaways

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sun, 11 May 2025 23:37:00 +0000

I compiled three key takeaways from the first few episodes of the historical drama Vikings. I asked an AI to critique my observations, and I believe the feedback might interest others, so I'm sharing it here.

"It's great that you've been able to draw such insightful lessons from the early episodes of Vikings! Your observations highlight some of the core themes that make the show compelling. Let's break down your points and see what we can add:

You've done a good job summarizing key plot points and extracting meaningful takeaways. Here are my thoughts on your lessons and some additional perspectives:

Your Lesson 1: "Don't tell, show. It's the most convincing thing."

Your Analysis: You rightly point to Ragnar's secret boat building and successful first voyage west as a prime example. He didn't just talk about the possibility of new lands or better navigation; he undertook the risk and returned with tangible proof (treasure and a captive, Athelstan), forcing others to acknowledge his vision.
My Thoughts: This is a powerful lesson, both in the show and in life. Ragnar's actions fundamentally challenged the existing power structures and beliefs. His demonstration was disruptive and ultimately revolutionary for his community. This lesson also ties into courage and conviction. Ragnar faced significant opposition and risked everything, including his life and the lives of his crew, based on his belief and his innovative approach to navigation (the sunstone and sun compass).
Adding to it:

The Power of Innovation: Ragnar's adoption and development of new navigational tools were key to his ability to "show, not tell." This highlights how embracing new technologies or methods can be a catalyst for demonstrating a new reality.
Calculated Risk: While Ragnar took a huge risk, it wasn't entirely blind. He had gathered information, developed a method, and built a team. His "showing" was the culmination of careful preparation.

Image created by Grok Ai

Your Lesson 2 (which you labeled as the third lesson): "When you present opportunities, you can unite people."

Your Analysis: You observed that Ragnar's success and the promise of richer lands to the west convinced even rival kings/jarls to consider joining forces, rather than continuing to fight over scarce local resources.
My Thoughts: This is a very astute observation. Ragnar's vision offered a more appealing alternative to the status quo of internal conflict. He presented a common goal that was more lucrative and potentially less costly in terms of Viking lives than fighting each other.
Adding to it:
- Shared Interest Overcoming Division: This lesson speaks to the power of finding common ground. Even amongst fiercely independent and often warring chieftains, the allure of greater wealth and new opportunities could foster temporary alliances. The "opportunity" needs to be significant enough to outweigh existing grievances or ambitions.
- Leadership and Vision: It took Ragnar's leadership and compelling vision to articulate this opportunity in a way that others could see its benefits. He wasn't just a raider; he was becoming a visionary leader.

Your Lesson 3 (which you labeled as the fourth lesson): "Open-mindedness and the power of ideas." (Learned from King Ecbert)

Your Analysis: You correctly highlight King Ecbert's willingness to learn from the past, specifically Roman history and military tactics, despite the prevailing Christian disapproval of pagan (and by extension, Roman) knowledge.¹ This intellectual curiosity and strategic thinking gave him an edge.
My Thoughts: This is a crucial lesson, and King Ecbert is a fascinating character because of this trait. He recognized the value of knowledge regardless of its source, contrasting sharply with some of the more dogmatic figures around him.
Adding to it:
- The Strategic Value of Knowledge: Ecbert's study of Roman texts wasn't just a hobby; it was a strategic imperative.² He understood that understanding history, culture, and tactics (even those of former enemies or different belief systems) could provide a significant advantage.
- Adaptability: Ecbert's open-mindedness allowed him to adapt and counter a new, unfamiliar threat like the Vikings. He wasn't stuck in old ways of thinking. This also subtly mirrors Ragnar's own innovative spirit – both are, in their own ways, forward-thinkers.
- Pragmatism over Dogma: Ecbert’s actions demonstrate a pragmatic approach to governance and warfare. He was willing to utilize any tool or idea that could strengthen his position and kingdom, even if it came from a source his society might traditionally shun.

Regarding the "second lesson" you mentioned was part of the Earl's desire to keep men working for him:

This is an important precursor to your first lesson. The Earl's desire to maintain the status quo, control resources, and suppress Ragnar's ambition highlights the resistance to change that innovators often face. Those in power often have a vested interest in keeping things as they are. Ragnar's need to act in secret underscores this. This could be formulated as:

Lesson: Visionaries often face resistance from established powers. Those comfortable with the current system may actively try to suppress new ideas that threaten their control or worldview.

Other Potential Lessons from Early Vikings (Season 1):

The Clash of Cultures and Beliefs: The initial encounters between the Vikings and the Christians of England, particularly through the eyes of Athelstan, provide a stark look at differing worldviews, moral codes, and religious practices. This can teach us about cultural relativism, the challenges of understanding the "other," and the often brutal nature of such clashes.
The Importance of Faith and Ritual: For both the Vikings (Norse paganism) and the Saxons (Christianity), faith and ritual are central to their lives, guiding their actions, hopes, and understanding of the world.³ The show explores how deeply these beliefs motivate individuals and shape societies.
Ambition and its Consequences: Ragnar is driven by a powerful ambition – for knowledge, for wealth, for a better future for his people, and arguably for fame. The early season shows the spark of this ambition and hints at the great lengths he will go to achieve it, as well as the potential costs.
Family and Loyalty: The bonds of family (Ragnar and Lagertha, their children, Ragnar and Rollo) and loyalty within the Viking warrior culture are central. However, these bonds are also frequently tested by ambition, betrayal, and the harsh realities of their lives. The complexities of Rollo's loyalty to Ragnar, for example, are apparent early on.
The Nature of Power: The show quickly establishes the brutal and often precarious nature of power in the Viking world. Earl Haraldson wields his power with authority, but Ragnar's challenge demonstrates that power can be contested and overturned by those with vision, courage, and support.

You've tapped into some excellent core themes of Vikings with your lessons! The show does a great job of weaving these complex human and societal dynamics into its historical drama. Keep watching; there are many more lessons and nuances to uncover!

The one rule that never fails me in any situation

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sat, 08 Jul 2023 16:24:00 +0000

I have come across many books, articles, and videos that claim to have a certain number of rules for success. These rules often have a catchy number, such as the top 10 rules for a successful life, a healthy life, or personal finance. But none of them have made a lasting impression on me. If you google the top 10 rules on any topic, from finance and health to success and relationships, you will find countless best-selling books and even celebrities endorsing such ideas. Here is an example of what Google search shows for the top 10 rules of success:

Similarly, here is what Google search displays for the top 10 rules on personal finance:

These are all valuable tips, but they don’t match what I experience every day. On the other hand, one phrase that my father, a person who never had a chance to attend school even for a day, taught me has stayed with me like a golden rule. Whatever I do, the outcomes only confirm this golden rule. Let me give you some examples:

When I cook, adding too much of any ingredient spoils the dish. Too much salt makes it salty, too much water makes it soggy, too much oil makes it greasy, and too much sugar makes it sweet… When I garden, overwatering kills the plants, as does too much sun, shade, pruning, or fertilizer… Anything in excess harms the plant. Exercise is good but overdoing it tires you out and makes you quit after a while. Walking is good for you but walking too much leaves you sore and stiff the next day. I don’t want to bore you with my trivial examples. But if you look around and pay attention to what people say or write, you will find countless examples of how too much of anything ruins life, nature, society, health… and even a meal.

For example, consider a best-selling book on Amazon that offers financial advice: “The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure” [1] by Grant Cardone. The author advises readers to write down their goals and dreams in specific and measurable terms (for example, you want to earn enough in the next 5 years to have 1 million dollars in cash, a common wish for many people and also the first challenging step towards financial freedom), and then multiply them by 10X. If you plan to make 10 sales calls today, multiply that by 10X, and so on. This book has about 11000 ratings on Amazon. The idea sounds appealing but is it realistic and sustainable? Can you imagine the impact of such a drastic push on your health, relationships, and even your own dream? Suppose you want to lose 10 pounds in a month (which I have seen people do, a reasonable goal). If you apply the 10X rule and try to lose 100 pounds in a month, you will surely fail and exhaust yourself, which will destroy your motivation to pursue your dream. Most of what we do requires long-term effort, whether it is health, financial freedom, education or career goals, learning a skill, or building something… all require long-term effort. A short-term burst is achievable but if we can’t maintain it, it will fade away, along with the dream it was meant to fulfill.

If you look around, you will see that we are applying the 10X rule in every aspect of modern society, from education to social activism and justice to finance and health… just to name a few. And then you might wonder why society is falling apart. Why is there so much mistrust, division, and hatred? The 10X mentality is the main culprit. The Abrahamic religions, which started as a message of human equality, now have some of the most violent, racist, and intolerant followers. Their 10X belief in their values makes them so self-righteous that they see anyone who doesn’t fit their standards as deserving of punishment.

So, what was my father's golden rule (Following in Hazaragi):

کار کو بہ اندازہ کی از دیست و پائے نہ اندازہ

Translation: Work hard but within your limits so that you can keep it up for a long time (or work hard but not beyond your physical capacity so that you can endure it for a long time).

External Links:

[1] Book: The 10X rule: The difference by success and failure; https://tinyurl.com/yckv2a8u

[2] Author Grant Cardone; https://grantcardone.com/

The illogical fear of Artificial Intelligence

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 02:43:00 +0000

In the previous article, I argued that notions of “AI will end humanity” or “AI will end human civilization” boldly cross the nonsensical fear territory with hypersonic speed, and land directly into the mysterious lands of bullshits (Pardon my language, please!). Before I get paralyzed by the fear of the unknown and speculate about a future that has not yet happened, I prefer to look back and see how the “paradigm shift” kind of technologies have affected humanity and human civilization. Among the many tools that humans have invented, let’s focus on the “cognitive-aid tools” such as AI. Since generative AI consists of large language models - sets of machine learning algorithms - trained or applied to vast data [1] produced by humans as well as machines, we can trace the origins of AI as far back as cave art. It took humanity more than 64000 years from cave art to AI-generated imageries and texts. In 64000 years, humanity has seen the rises and declines of many civilizations but none is associated with the innovation of “cognitive-aid tools”.

The image is produced by Bing AI

Cognitive aid tools as accelerators of human civilizations:

Cave art is the oldest known form of human expression (a form of data produced by humans). Some of the oldest examples of cave art, such as the paintings in Maltravieso cave in Caceres, Spain, date back to 64,000 years ago [2]. Writing, on the other hand, emerged much later in human history. Some of the oldest records of writing, preserved in the form of Sumerian clay tablets, are only 3,400 years old [3]. These tablets were used for record-keeping by a number of independent city-states that formed the Sumerian civilization [4]. There is no evidence that the transition from painting to writing had any negative impact on any civilization. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence that writing helped the city-states expand into empires that fostered the development of human civilizations. Even people like Graham Hancock [5], who believe that human civilization is much older and use the “Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis” [6] to support their claims, do not argue that the supposed ancient civilization was destroyed by any innovation of cognitive-aid tools such as painting, writing or printing machines. However, it is worth mentioning here that Hancock’s claims of a much older civilization have been debunked by others [7].

The image is generated by Bing AI

No matter what your position is in this debate, one thing is clear: the invention of writing as a more efficient form of communication and record-keeping than painting did not harm human civilization but boosted its growth and expansion. Writing enabled humans to record laws, history, recipes, medicine, science, philosophy, and many other aspects of human knowledge and culture. Further evidence comes from the invention of printing machines. The printing machines did not make writers and painters obsolete but rather created new opportunities for them to flourish. The printing machines also facilitated the education of the masses, which was essential for the industrial revolution. Moreover, they allowed writers to reach millions of new customers who could afford cheaper mass-produced books. As a result, a lot of works were produced that challenged or offended the prevailing cultures, societies, and authorities, and sometimes even sparked wars, revolutions [8, 9], and mass killings [10]. However, without the printing machines, the Renaissance and modern scientific and technological innovations would not have been possible. Fast forward to our time, the innovation of computers and the internet that enabled humans to communicate live by typing on keyboards and touchscreens, in addition to talking and gesturing, accelerated social, educational, and economic growth to unprecedented levels. In the large economies that make up 70% of global GDP, the Internet contributes more than agriculture [11]. Let that sink in for a minute. This is a huge leap in human history compared to painting and writing.

The illogical fear of AI debunked

The image is generated by Bing AI

Many people have a strange fear that AI will end human independence in decision-making, or take over human thinking and creativity. This phobia is illogical when we think about the relationship of AI with humanity rationally. What AI is doing to humans is not something unprecedented. It has happened many times. It happened when humans transitioned from hunter-gatherer tribes to agricultural societies. It also happened when humans transitioned from agricultural to industrial-dominated societies, and from industrial to digital/service-dominated societies. In all these transitions, the nature of work and human lifestyles changed. With AI, a new wave of personal assistants is on the way that will transform the fields of education, healthcare, politics, law, communication, finance, and more. During this transition (as in previous transitions), there will be a massive transfer of wealth, power, and decision-making abilities, and a significant shift in worldviews and behaviors of people that will exacerbate some of the dominant conflicts and fault lines, and bring about societal changes at an accelerated pace (I will leave these predictions/extrapolations for a future blog post). However, based on past transitions, I strongly believe that with AI assistance becoming part of our lives, the transfer of wealth, power, and societal changes will benefit most people (not just the 1% wealthy and the 10% credentialed elites).

References

[1] What is Generative Ai?. C3 AI. (2023, May 11). https://shorturl.at/HJLPU

[2] The Archaeologist. (2022, December 18). Ten oldest known cave paintings in the world. The Archaeologist. https://shorturl.at/fiFG4

[3] Brown, S. (n.d.). Where did writing come from?. Getty. https://shorturl.at/dgmvL

[4] Wikipedia contributors. (2023, June 21). Sumer. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:06, June 21, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sumer&oldid=1161256256

[5] Wikipedia contributors. (2023, June 1). Graham Hancock. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:31, June 21, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Graham_Hancock&oldid=1157970488

[6] Martin B. Sweatman, The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: Review of the impact evidence,

Earth-Science Reviews, Volume 218, 2021, 103677, ISSN 0012-8252, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103677.

[7] Shermer, M. (2017, June 1). No, there wasn’t an advanced civilization 12,000 years ago. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an-advanced-civilization-12-000-years-ago/

[8] Wikipedia contributors. (2023, June 26). Russian Revolution. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:48, July 6, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russian_Revolution&oldid=116196932

[9] Wikipedia contributors. (2023, June 19). Chinese Communist Revolution. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:51, July 6, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chinese_Communist_Revolution&oldid=1160842672

[10] Wikipedia contributors. (2023, July 4). The Holocaust. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:10, July 6, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Holocaust&oldid=1163441526

[11] James Manyika and Charles Roxburgh (2001) The great transformer: The impact of the Internet on economic growth and prosperity, McKinsey Global Institute, https://shorturl.at/AJNV9

The Artificial Intelligence bullshit

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 18:50:00 +0000

I always try to use polite language and still, there are exceptional times that I feel polite language fails to express my true emotions. Based on Google Ngram Viewer, the different versions of "bullshits" are on the exponential rise in printed works in recent years. See the following graph generated by the "Google Books Ngram Viewer" as a reference. "The AI bullshit" as the title of this blog post truly captures my emotion on this subject, and I don't feel that I am making a nuisance of myself as the use of "bullshit" in printed work is becoming more acceptable.

Now that I presented something in defense of my impolite title for this blog post, let me mention the reasons for choosing such a title. Recently, I see many "expert" opinions on how AI is going to end the human race [1] and human civilizations [2]. At least predictions in the job sector are more balanced. While AI like any other "paradigm-shift" kind of technology, makes some jobs obsolete (AI may replace some 85 million jobs by 2025), however, it creates even more new jobs (an estimated 97 million new jobs at the same time) [3]. But when I turn to ordinary guys on the internet, I see multitudes of people coming up with creative ways to enhance their work by the generative power of AI, be it in generating texts, images, voice, or video. The Internet or the world wide web has been here for enough time (34 years [4]) to allow us to reflect on its impact on the human race, civilization, and job market. Like any other technology, the Internet has had both positive and negative impacts, common sense, right? We can point to positive and negative impacts on every aspect of society, but there is one impact that comes from both negative and positive aspects of the internet that surpasses everything else, and that is forcing humanity to be even smarter in order to function in the digital world. Everyone knows about the positive impacts that the internet had on their personal lives. Let's debunk some of the negative aspects of the internet. Is the internet spreading mass misinformation? Yes, and that is why humans in the digital age have to rely on their rationality, be up-to-date and use their digital skills to distinguish between fake news, propaganda (Psy-ops [5]), fake images, voices, videos, plagiarism, etc. Did the internet increase scams and Ponzi schemes [6]? Undoubtedly, it forced ordinary men and women to be more diligent, do their own research, learn about businesses and investments, and become more smart about their finances in the long run. The same is true about social app addictions, sedentary lifestyles, body images, and self-perceptions. Individuals learn about the negative health impacts of these factors and try to be more active and find a supportive community online. The changes in perspectives of people about health, education, relationship, money, and investments to the societal and ecological changes are enormous. As I mentioned earlier, and repeating myself to stress the importance of this subject, by changing the way we learn, by expanding from the people we learn, and interact with, the internet has changed us, and our perspectives whether we are aware of it or not. One of the readers who is very confident and sure about his solid way of thinking may stop me here, and say nope, the internet did not change the way I think at all. Alright, alright, he or she may be right but still the internet forces even the most hard-headed among us to think about things that he would not have thought about in the absence of the internet. The internet bombards us with information every day but then from now and then, it brings a storm of information about a subject that makes us respond like me writing on AI bullshit 😜😜😜😜😜😜

An image generated by Bing AI

I want to shift gears now and return to the topic of AI but I can't help myself not mentioning some other aspects of the internet that would allow me to argue better about the AI bullshit. There were 12 to 24 million e-commerce sites [7] on the internet in 2022, and the number is increasing. In the fall of 2020, 11.8 million undergraduate students took some online courses in the U.S., alone [8]. In short, the internet not only has been the disrupter of the key services to the public by creating alternatives to the exclusive clubs in entertainment, education, business, politics, religion.....etc, but it also proved to be the growth engine of the economy and general prosperity. The Internet has connected 2 billion people across the globe who exchange 8 trillion dollars worth of goods and services via e-commerce sites [9].

See not only internet didn't end the human race or human civilization, it actually served as a growth engine in every aspect of human life. AI has been part of the internet and has been part of the growth engine. I think of AI as a better version of the internet. It forces me to be even smarter. While in Web 2.0 I could be consuming tones of bullshits from "experts" who couldn't resist their biases, or sometimes, I could fall for their sophisticated (right, you already understood, the ancient sophist kinds of arguments) arguments, the AI offers a much-balanced version of any topic. While interacting with AI, I know that I am interacting with an algorithm, and do not take its answers at face value but as suggestions or starting points to dig deeper and do my own thinking. If I query something, and it produces something that I didn't mean, I know I haven't asked proper questions and it forces think more straightforwardly, more clearly, and more precisely. The balanced and straightforward answers help us to be more balanced and more precise. Will there be unintended harms and negative aspects of more conscious or advanced AI? Definitely, but by forcing us to become even smarter, AI does not end the human race or human civilization but will push us to become a much better version of us capable of functioning and handling smart tools such as generative or maybe tomorrow sentient AI.

Image generated by Bing AI

References

[1] Cellan-Jones, R. (2014, December 2). Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540

[2] Yuval Noah Harari argues that AI has hacked the operating system of human civilization. (n.d.). The Economist. Retrieved June 6, 2023, from https://shorturl.at/brwIR

[3] Thomas, M. (2019, August 27). AI and the Future of Jobs. Built In; Mike Thomas. https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-replacing-jobs-creating-jobs

[4] Wikipedia contributors. (2023, May 8). History of the World Wide Web. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:16, June 6, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_World_Wide_Web&oldid=1153796078

[5] Wikipedia contributors. (2023, May 31). Psychological warfare. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:29, June 6, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Psychological_warfare&oldid=1157798018

[6] Wikipedia contributors. (2023, May 16). Ponzi scheme. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:37, June 6, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ponzi_scheme&oldid=1155018798[7] IBISWorld - Industry Market Research, Reports, and Statistics. (n.d.) Www.ibisworld.com. https://shorturl.at/biFIU

[8] National Center for Education Statistics. (2015). The NCES Fast Facts Tool provides quick answers to many education questions (National Center for Education Statistics). Ed.gov; National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=80

Schools are enablers but not the makers of great humans

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sat, 20 May 2023 01:31:00 +0000

Is education limited to a timeline?

Schools, as we all know, follow a timeline. As soon as a student begins school, a race against time and comparison with other students starts. The students who move fast in this timeline or perform much better than his/her peers are considered bright students. And of course, every class has one or two bright students. I have no doubt that the majority of these bright students do well in their personal lives or make good and rewarding careers. To do well in life or career one needs to follow the existing systems. The question is how many of these bright students become great humans by creating a new system that becomes mainstream and changes humanity’s direction?

The image is generated by Bing image generator

With a quick glance at what we learn in school, one realizes that learning a system is fast but creating a new system requires an intellectual “Superman” or “Supergirl” if you like. For instance, children learn abstract ideas like alphabets and numerals in the first two years of schooling. It took humanity more than 6 million years to invent these abstract systems. Why did it take humanity so long to come up with systems that children learn in a few years of mentored learning? We can find some clues in the difference between learning a language and writing. Children learn language with ease, and when they enter the school, they are already equipped with the spoken language. Learning writing, requires immense effort from the student, and his/her mentors, simultaneously. Let’s put it another way. It is very likely that humans in the stone age spoke complex languages comparable to modern languages. In 1930, Michael Leahy, an Australian Gold prospector came across the native people in the central mountains of New Guinea - the second largest island in the world - that he thought spoke in a “jabbering” language [1]. By 1960, it was learned that the native people spoke 800 different languages. The island was isolated from the rest of humanity for 40,000 years, and the languages that evolved were distinct to this island. In comparison, humans invented writing 5000 years ago. It is common knowledge that both alphabets and numerals evolved slowly in the last 5000 years. For instance, ancient Egyptians could write in hieroglyphics, and ancient Romans didn’t have the concept of zero. Noam Chomsky has an answer for the differences between language acquisition and writing skills. He proposes that all humans have an innate capacity for language and all languages follow a universal grammar [2]. The innate ability for language, even the partial innate ability explains well, why cavemen could have complex languages, and children learn language at ease even in isolated tribes.

Once students learn how to read and write, they are implicitly told that to become good at something they have to practice a lot. Phrases like, “practice makes perfect” are often quoted in a variety of ways. In recent years, round numbers such as 10,000 or 1,000,000 have become popular. It is so appealing to learn that if one spends “10,000” hours at anything, he or she can become very good at it. It is known as a 10,000 rule [3]. It takes 3-4 years of disciplined commitment to accomplish the 10,000 rule. Let’s do some simple calculations. If one spends 8 hours a day with no breaks for 3.4 years on a single task such as writing, he or she can accomplish the 10,000 hours rule. Besides, the 10,000-hour rule, there is a million-word rule [4] for becoming a good writer which agrees on the amount of time with the 10,000 rule. If a person makes a commitment to writing 1000 words every day, it will take him or her 3 years to complete the task of writing 1 million words.

In school, students spend lots of time reading and writing. If the 10,000 hours or a million hours rule is true, why do we not see a mass of good writers and speakers among high school graduates? By the time a student graduates from high school, he or she has spent more than 10,000 hours in school learning the basics of human knowledge. The 10,000 hours number comes from OECD [5] which says that a student in the U.S. spends 8,884 hours over 9 years in primary and lower secondary schools. If we add 4 more years that a student spends in high school to this number considering that the student spends 180 days per year or 1260 hours per year in school, a high school graduate has spent 13924 hours in school.

When I googled famous authors with high school education, 14 names showed up including Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, George Orwell, David Hume, Robert Frost, Jackie Collins, Michael Morpurgo, Frank McCourt, Roald Dahl, Dana Goldstein, Anne Ruggles Gere, and Juana Ines de la Cruz. What these famous writers had or done that millions of other high school graduates did not do? A quote attributed to Pablo Picasso may shed some light on this problem, “It took me 4 years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Picasso’s four years also agrees with the 10,000 hours or a million words rule but it adds another dimension to the debate, and that’s the personal calling. Since the 10,000 rule is a general rule, we may argue that by spending 10000 hours one can acquire the competency needed to write well or paint well, but to write something or paint something that changes the way people think or see things requires something personal - something that allows people see things beyond learned frames of thinking or organizing things, in case of Picasso seeing things like children, for instance. Just as Picasso learned to paint like Raphael, if he kept painting in that style, he wouldn’t be the Picasso we know. He had to come up with something totally different from all previous artists, something very close to the cave artists.

Do genetic and environmental variations explain the difference between good and great?

Physical performances like athletic performances are greatly influenced by genetic variations -30 to 80 percent [6]. The muscle composition like slow-twitch muscle fiber and fast-twitch muscle fiber determines the endurance versus speed of the athletes, aerobic capacity - the maximum amount of oxygen that the body can provide to muscles, and other obvious physical determinants like height and muscle mass are mostly predetermined by the genetic inheritance. Besides physical fields, genetics also have a great influence on the intellectual performances of individuals. It is no brainer to see the link between one’s ability to behave, regulate one’s emotions, and form social bonds or attachments will determine one’s performance in school, work, relationships, and quality of life, in general. These three qualities are attributed to one’s temper, and it has been shown that temper is influenced by genetic inheritance [7]. In addition to genetics, environmental influences play an enormous role in both the physical and intellectual performances of a person. There is a critical period for the acquisition of a new language or language. A child exposed to multiple languages at the age of 1 to 5 years can effortlessly become multilingual. Recent studies extended the critical period for the acquisition of new languages to 17-18 years of age [8]. Another important aspect of the environment is the development of the attachment style that a baby develops in the first year of life [9] depending on the relationship of the baby to the caregiver which will highly influence the child’s future relationship when he or she enters into adulthood.

Based on the variations in genetics and also the environment, it becomes obvious that there will be great variations among individuals just by following the 10,000 hours rule. It is also evident from the results of high school graduates. As mentioned before, students spend around 14000 hours in school to graduate high school, but only 60 to 70% of the students enrolled in colleges from 1993 to 2021 [10]. Besides, time, genetics, and environment are other factors to consider when we think about becoming good at something. Considering the accelerating rates of progress in every field, it seems a sufficient number of individuals become good at something. Considering the global talent pool at Silicon Valley that has come from gene pools across the globe and from a variety of educational institutions, one can argue that deliberate practice for around 10,000 hours may override most of the genetic and environmental variations among individuals. Becoming good enough at something is universal for most abled men and women. My argument is about going from good to great. Considering very few great men and women in each generation, I am inclined to think that going from good to great is something personal.

So, What makes someone go from good to great?

I began this article by comparing language versus writing and numerals and argued that writing and numerals were hard to invent because, unlike language, they are based on systems. Numerals as a system of thinking are still in progress. What makes an individual great is not mere time spent practicing but time spent tweaking a system to improve or change it enough that it allows the rest of humanity to see the reality whether natural or constructed with a new perspective. Most people learn -mostly from schools - the systems but very few try to change it for the better.

References

[1] Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct. How the Mind Creates Language. Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2007.

[2] Tool Module: Chomsky's Universal Grammar, https://tinyurl.com/yjjm57mr

[3] Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Company, 2019.

[4] Fortier-Dubois, Étienne. “How Many Words Have You Ever Written?”, Atlas of Wonders and Monsters, 30 Dec. 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2unpd3x4

[5] “United States: Read Online.” Oecd, https://tinyurl.com/ykbd53ev

[6] “Is Athletic Performance Determined by Genetics?: Medlineplus Genetics.” MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://tinyurl.com/2p82uk4b

[7] Cloninger, C.R., Cloninger, K.M., Zwir, I. et al. The complex genetics and biology of human temperament: a review of traditional concepts in relation to new molecular findings. Transl Psychiatry 9, 290 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-019-0621-4

[8] “Cognitive Scientists Define Critical Period for Learning Language.” MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1 May 2018, https://tinyurl.com/mpzdrufb

[9] Li, Pamela. “Bowlby & Ainsworth Attachment Theory – How Does It Work?” Parenting for Brain, 17 Jan. 2023, www.parentingforbrain.com/attachment-theory.

[10] 61.8 Percent Of Recent High School Graduates Enrolled In College In October 2021 : The Economics Daily: U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics. 23 May 2022,https://tinyurl.com/3pk448ha

So, the original is a hybrid? Not an angel or a devil?

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sat, 20 May 2023 00:58:00 +0000

I thought two kinds of originals existed that were recognized by humanity from time immemorial, an angel and a devil. The humans weren’t originals. They had to choose to become either an angel or a devil or if they did not have the guts of becoming either, they had to ask for help from an angel to save them or worship a devil to grant them the power to dominate others. But Adam Grant suggests that all who believe in these two well-defined groupings are conformists and to be an original, you have to be non-conformist. What the hell is a non-conformist? See, I am being a nonconformist here. The professor asked to summarize the video talk in 125 words, maximum. I watched the video. In the video, Adam Grant sells the idea that nonconformists are originals, and guess what? While watching the video, the “power of suggestion” starts rewiring the synapses (neuron connections) in my brain, and my brain instructs me to be an original by changing the format of writing. It instructs me to write the essay like an opening scene of a movie - show a scene that promises something is going to happen. Before I go back to the story of hybrids, read the summary of the video;

The image is generated by the Bing generator

Summary

In his TED talk titled, “The surprising habits of original thinkers”, Adam Grants notes three common habits of the people he considers “originals. The first habit is being “slow to get off the ground”, the second is doubting an idea instead of doubting one's ability, and third, generating lots of ideas until stumbling on an original idea.

Response

While Adam Grants are successful in selling the three habits, and it is possible that most of the people who came up with an original idea and popularized those ideas through their works somewhat share percentages of these habits, I am not convinced of the implied definition of the “original” for several reasons, chief among them is the improving an existing idea. Another important reason is producing lots of ideas in the hope of stumbling upon an original idea. I am not saying that it doesn’t work. But I am inclined to the notion of the data analysts who believe in the concept of “garbage in, garbage out”. The quality of results or predictions depends on the quality of data, and that is the reason data scientists or scientists in general spend most of their time generating and sorting quality data before analyzing it. I think the same is true in the arts, creating movies, writing novels, establishing a business …etc.

Originality is a personal culture. If one has developed a culture of originality then he or she can benefit from Adam Grant's ideas the most. I believe the culture of “originality” comes from the realization that there is no finished work and there is nothing perfect, not even in Nature. It is all processes that we experience. The wider culture of the society usually kills the realization of processes by the rules, costumes, traditions, procedures… etc. An original person develops a culture and skills strong enough to make his or her rule-breaking work acceptable to the wider culture. Picasso describes originality beautifully, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Adam Grant’s three habits enrich the personal cultures of an original person by informing him how these habits helped other original thinkers. I am inclined to think that one has not developed a personal culture of originality, he or she might enjoy the talk but those habits might not stick with him or her, and he/she might forget them when he/she finds another enjoyable video or video.

Inclusive democracy is the engine of progress

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sat, 20 May 2023 00:29:00 +0000

Abigail Hogan in his article titled, “Discourse Is Democracy: Allowing Uncensored Speech on College Campuses" argues that a college is a place of growth, and for the development of political issues in the real world, the students in college need to engage in open and informed debates. The growing practice of blocking speakers with different political opinions is taking away the opportunity of listening to opposing ideas and engage in informed conversations. Protests by college students are a catalyst of democracy and progress but blocking speakers from colleges is a disservice to democracy. The stop on blocking speakers will benefit both students and future political discourse.

I have an algorithmic approach to reviewing a piece of opinion that I have refined over the years. The algorithm is borrowed from the title of the famous Western movie by name of, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”. Any part of an opinion that is based on facts or can be backed by facts is the good part. The parts that are based on gray areas or not conclusive data are a terrible part of the argument. The part that is based on prejudices, or can’t be backed by concrete evidence is the ugly part of the opinion.

Armed with an algorithm that I have defined in the previous paragraph, the good part about the opinion piece is the reference to the “Foundation for Individual Rights in Education” and the numbers of incidences that shows an increase in the practice students attempt to prevent public figures from speaking at colleges. Another good part of the article is the definitions of the protests and also political discourse with references to historical events such as Gandhi’s salt march, and the American Civil Rights movements, as well as the current polarization of the political environment. This distinction serves well in favor of the argument as it points to the fact that protests during the American Civil Rights movements had a healing effect on American society and political discourse in general, and in comparison, the college protests will deepen the political polarization by creating echo chambers, and therefore, it is interests of students to allow a wide range of opinions in the colleges.

Image generated by Bing image generator

Now, the bad part of the article is omitting the long history of marginalization as well as polarization. The article gives references to public figures and popular political movements. See, right there lies the problem that consequently shows itself in the form of political polarization and intolerance in the form of student protests. Let me explain. Public figures have had long careers and well-known political discourses that are known to the public, and it is hard to not hear them given the interests of newspapers, magazines, television, and social media about their lives, careers, and opinions. Allowing them to speak at colleges or not allowing them at colleges both serve them well as both events advertise their well-known opinions. An interesting exercise would be to bring these public figures to colleges and let them listen to students coming from marginalized backgrounds. The colleges and other students can help these students to refine their opinions and be able to present their thoughts and experiences. OR, alternatively, colleges can invite opinionated individuals from marginalized communities, and let public figures and other students listen to them. This practice serves well both democracy and political discourse.

Now comes the ugly part of the article, and that’s jumping to the conclusion that “if we fail to listen or we turn our back to the opposition instead of arguing and engaging, then we have already lost” without providing a clear picture of how to engage and argue with opposition, who is the opposition and what we will lose by not engaging? Let me elaborate a bit. Students who come to college might not have had the levels of exposure to the pressing political issues, haven’t had the opportunities to speak their minds, learn to express themselves in proper manners, and even more importantly have more pressing personal issues that do not permit them to ponder political issues. Do the students who protest to the speaker represent all students or they have had exposure to political debates all their lives, and college is just one of many platforms available to them? Because of their vast exposure, they might not miss or lose anything. In the case of political discourse, they might be deep in dialogues or engaging fiercely on social media or political meetings, or other platforms. Even with casual surfing of the internet, newspapers, mainstream media, books, and journals published, we find a small intellectual class dominating the political discourse everywhere. Considering the dominant voices, allowing or blocking public figures in colleges does not change the outcomes of current political polarization or does not add any benefits to the students. There is a need for debate on the transparency of algorithms used for show web searches, enabling students to express themselves, publications, the way public figures are made, and selection of the speakers in order for marginalized voices to be heard, and engaging and inclusive debates to become possible.

Any quick read of developmental psychology [1], makes it obvious that children's mental development is heavily influenced by their environments. A decade or two ago, it was mainstream media and Ivy schools that dominated the narrative spheres and influenced the mind development of most of the students. Then, the internet came and there were hopes for a more open and engaging environment where voices on the fringes could also be heard. Now, there are a few companies that dominate web searches, and their algorithms [2] bury the fringe voices deep enough to make them voiceless again. In fact, the internet has become an echo chamber, as once was mainstream media. Growing up in such an environment where voices on the fringes are discouraged (maybe unintentionally or purely on business needs or political needs), talking about the progress of political discourse or benefits of students just by allowing or blocking a public speaker on college campuses is misleading or doesn’t change the current environment. Every new invention, technology, or policy brings some hope but without guardrails, the mainstream becomes mainstream, and the voices on the fringes remain on the fringes. I have named this argumentative and response essay, “Inclusive Democracy is the Engine of Progress” which summarizes my response to Abigail’s article.

References

Wikipedia contributors. (2023, February 10). Developmental psychology. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_psychology
Weapons of math destruction how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy, O'Neil - Broadway Books - 2017

Inception, a classic science fiction thriller movie that almost met my expectations

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sat, 20 May 2023 00:05:00 +0000

A classic science fiction thriller

Inception is a science fiction thriller movie released in 2010 and directed by Christopher Nolan. The movie can be considered a classic in the science fiction genre based on the unique theme- heist of dreams, plot - a thief that planted a simple idea in the brain of his wife which blurs the idea of a real and dream world in her mind and she kills herself. Now a businessman wants the thief to plant a similar idea in the brain of a rival businessman’s son, and steal important information from his memory, and unique cinematography - the multistory buildings bending back on themselves, and the hotel room turned upside down. If one google, “hard to follow the storyline of the movie, inception”, one immediately finds that the storyline thread was hard to follow for people who do not have some form of training or education in “system thinking” or “systematic thinking”, and easy for those who have such a training. As an example, I am providing the link at the end of this article to a discussion thread for those who are interested to know the differences of opinions on the difficulty levels of the storyline in the movie [1].

Visualizing the levels of dream

What I most liked about the movie was the visualization of the dream levels. Despite the complaints about the hard-to-follow storyline, the movie follows a logical sequence of events: the “dream inside the dream”. The “dream inside the dream” is symbolized by the floors that are accessible through an elevator. The lower floor takes the dreamer to the deeper levels of the dream. The most interesting thesis of the movie is that the protagonist built a dream world where his dead wife and separated children live on the last floor, a concept borrowed from the Freudian division of the mind into conscious, subconscious (preconscious), and unconscious parts.

Image generated by Bing image generator

The movie didn’t meet parts of my expectations

Before watching the movie, I had heard a lot about the complexity of the movie which dives deep into the world of dreams.

Difference of control vs. speed of time: I expected to see the differences in controls at each level of the dream, meaning the dreamer had more control on the first floor and almost no control on the last floor. Instead, the movie showed the difference between speed and time at each level of the dream. The time passes faster at the first level and very very slow at the last floor. The protagonist has total control in all levels of the dream world and intentionally leaves the last floor that he has built for his dead wife and children.

No particular logic: I also expected some elements of weird, hard-to-follow logic, surprises, horror, or very pleasant scenes that are the signature of dreams. But the movie follows a logical series of events based on the waking world. While I enjoyed the thrills of the race against time- a common trick in most thriller movies, and a partial inclusion of the “dream world” such as the bending of the high-rise buildings, they still didn’t meet my expectations. By including more elements of the dream world, the movies could be much more exciting.

External links

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3735373

NOVA Documentary, "Secrets of Mind": key take home messages

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Fri, 19 May 2023 23:56:00 +0000

Following are the take-home messages from the NOVA documentary “Secrets of Mind” that I found noteworthy;

Image generated by Bing Image generator

For every part of the body, there is a sensory area or map of that part of the body in the brain called the somatosensory cortex. In the documentary, two phantom arm subjects were presented as case studies by Dr. V. S. Ramachandran. Based on the “somatosensory cortex” idea, except for the brain itself, we can get the phantom of any body part. For instance, Dr. Ramachandran mentions phantom appendix pain following appendectomy.
I found the application of knowledge in solving the phantom problem interesting. For instance, the use of a mirror box for solving a phantom limb problem was outstanding because it was non-invasive, inexpensive, quick, and used as a common tool available in every home.
The brain map of the body creates severe problems when there is a disruption in the bidirectional messaging system. For instance, when James -one of the subjects in the phantom limb case- lost one of his arms, his brain sent a signal to clench his fist because of the pain. But since there was no physical arm to send a signal back to the brain that there is too much clenching, the brain kept sending even more signals to the phantom arm. Normal medical interventions such as painkillers or traditional interventions such as mind control weren’t working in the case of Mr. James. A visual feedback to the brain in the form of a mirror box restored the bidirectional messaging and the clenching messaging to the phantom arm stopped.
Separate pathways (more conscious vs. more reflexive) to the visual cortex help patients notice/see even when their visual cortex is damaged. One pathway is an evolutionarily new pathway that goes from the eyeballs to the thalamus to the visual cortex and helps us see consciously. Another evolutionary older pathway that is more prominent in evolutionary older vertebrates than primates such as other mammals, reptiles, and birds going to the cortex via the brainstem is more reflexive. This reflexive pathway helps people see/notice movements even when their visual cortex is damaged in a phenomenon known as blind sightedness. This documentary, the case of Mr. Young Graham from Oxford, England was presented who lost vision on his right side due to an accident during his childhood which damaged his visual cortex. But still, he notices movements, though not the color, shapes, etc of the objects.
I found Dr. Ramachandran’s question based on conscious vs. reflexive pathways a fascinating and very important question about the nature of consciousness. Why is one pathway equal to consciousness and another to Zombie-like response? What consciousness is, anyway?
Peggy, another subject, had a stroke that damaged her brain's parietal lobe and caused a condition known as visual or hemi-spatial neglect. When asked to draw a shape, she draws half of the shape, for instance, a flower. According to Dr. Ramachandran doesn't have only visual problems but also a problem of consciousness. Since the parietal lobe is responsible for 3D representation or layout of the physical world and helps us navigate our environment, the damage in one part of the lobe results in the inability of the patient to respond to stimuli coming from the opposite side -contralateral- of the damaged area.
While navigating, the visual stimuli go through two pathways, the “how pathway” - which goes from the eyeballs to the parietal lobe area-, and the “what pathways”-which goes from the eyeballs to the temporal lobes, and then relayed to the amygdala, an area associated with emotions. David, another subject, suffered damage in the connection between the “temporal lobe-amygdala” part, hence occasionally does not invoke the emotional responses normally a person has upon seeing his parents. This damage caused “capgras delusion” in which the subject perceives his real parents as imposters. Since the auditory pathway to the “auditory cortex-amygdala” is intact in David he doesn't have a “capgras delusion” on the phone.
The case of John Sharon who suffers from temporal lobe epilepsy/seizure is particularly interesting. According to Dr. Ramachandran, the pathway between the temporal lobe-amygdala has sensory neural connections that determine the importance or emotional significance of things and is unique in each individual. Something that might be unimportant or trivial to a person might be emotionally very important to someone else. A landscape -mountains, valleys, plain areas- can as an analogy for the relative importance of things based on the strength of these connections. The seizure or epilepsy of the temporal lobe increases the strength of these connections indiscriminately. These exaggerated connections strengthen the significance of everything -not just what is important for our survival such as relations we love or threats we fear. This cosmic importance of everything is what Dr. Ramachandran calls a religious or mystic experience.

میں نے عمران خان کی مخالفت کیوں کی؟

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sun, 07 Aug 2022 05:30:00 +0000

میں اس جنریشن سے تعلق رکھتا ھوں، جو اسلامی انقلابات، کمونیزم، رنگین انقلابات، عربی بہار، اور "ھم 99 فیصد ھیں" جیسے انقلابات کے آتشفشاں اور پھر انکے لاوے کو پتھر بنتے دیکھے ھیں۔ جب آپ کسی عمل سے بار بار گزرتے ھیں، تو اس عمل کے بارے میں، آپ میں ایک چھٹی حس بنتے ھیں، جو بغیر زیادہ سوچے بتاتے ھیں، کہ یہ عمل درست سمت جار رھے ھیں، یا اسکے ساتھ کوئی مسئلہ ھے:

پہلی بار جب میں نے "ریاست مدینہ" کی وعدے وعید سنا، تو مجھے اپنے چھٹی حس کی ضرورت ھی نہیں پڑھی، کیونکہ اس "مدینے فاضلہ" کو بنانے کی سب سے بنیادی ضرورت، یعنی اس کے بنانے والے انسان مجھے کہیں نظر نہیں آرھے تھے۔ حضور (ص) 13 سال اپنے اصحاب کے تربیت کے بعد، اس قابل ھوگئے اس ریاست مدینہ کے داغ بیل ڈال سکیں۔ اس ریاست کے داغ بیل ڈالنے والے لوگوں کے ایسے تربیت ھوئے تھے، کہ اپنے گھروں، اور کاروباروں کو مدینہ میں پناہ لینے والے مہاجرین کے ساتھ برابر تقسیم کئے۔ مجھے تو پی ٹی آئی سے تعلق رکھنے والے لوگوں کو تو چھوڑ، پورے پاکستان میں ایسے لوگ نظر نہیں آرھے تھے۔ ھاں مال غنیمت کے کیلئے لڑنے مرنے والے لوگوں کے بہتات نظر آتے تھے، اور اب بھی نظر آتے ھیں۔ لوگوں کے تربیت کئے بغیر، انکو "ریاست مدینہ" کے پیچھے لگانا، ایسے ھی تھے، کہ آپ لوگوں سے پوچھے کہ آپ کیا بننا چاھتے ھیں، اورجس نے ڈاکٹر بننے کی خواھش کی، انکو میڈیکل اسکول بیجھنے کے بجائے ھسپتال میں بیج کر، ان سے لوگوں کے علاج، اور جس جس نے انجنئیر بننے کی خواھش کی، انہیں انجنئیرینگ اسکول کے بجائے، تعمیرات بنانے کو کہے۔ جسطرح، بغیر تربیت کے "ڈاکٹر" لوگوں کو گھر کے بجائے، قبرستان بھیج سکتے ھیں، اسی طرح، بغیر تربیت کے انقلاب کے دعویدار لوگ ملک کو ترقی کے بجائے، بحرانوں کے دلدل میں پھنسوا دیئے۔

انقلابوں کے آثارے قدیمہ میں، "ریاست مدینہ" کے اضافہ کو بھی دیکھ لیا۔ حضور کے ریاست مدینہ میں لوگوں کے اخلاقی تربیت اتنے بلند ھوگئے تھے، کہ وہ مہاجرین کے ساتھ گھر اور کاروبار تقسیم کئے، اور عمرانی ریاست مدینہ نے دوستوں کے دوستیاں اور دیسیوں کے تھوڑے بہت تہذیب مٹادیے۔

اس چھوٹی سی تمہید کی ضرورت اسلئے پیش آئی، کیونکہ گذشتہ چند دنوں میں، مجھے "عارف نقوی" سے متعلق تین کے قریب، آرٹیکل پڑھنے کا موقع ملا۔ پہلی آرٹیکل میں، پراوین سوامی، عمران خان کے سابقہ بیوی ریحام خان کا حوالہ دیتا ھے۔ عمران خان نے ریحام خان کو بتا دیا تھا کہ عارف نقوی نے اسکے 2013 کے الیکشن کے %66 حصے کو فنڈ کئے تھے٭۔ جیو ٹی وی آرٹیکل میں، عارف نقوی بتا دیتے ھیں کہ، اس نے عمران خان کے 2013 کے الیکشن کمپیئن کیلئے دو میلین، ایک لاکھ، اکیس ھزار پانچھ سو ڈالر پی ٹی آئی کے اکاونٹ میں ٹرانسفر کئے تھے٭٭۔

تیسری اور سب سے اھم آرٹیکل٭٭٭، عارف نقوی کے عالمی فراڈ سے متعلق ھیں۔ جس طرح عمران خان نے "ریاست مدینہ" کا وعدہ کرکے پاکستانی عوام کو چونا لگایا، عارف نقوی نے، "ایمپیکٹ انویسٹمنٹ"، "باضمیر سرمایہ داری نظام" کے دلنشین وعدوں کیساتھ، امریکی حکومت اور بیل گیٹس جیسے سرمایہ کاروں کو 385 میلین ڈالر کا چونا لگا چکے ھیں۔ دنیا کے چوٹی کی امیر لوگوں اور باقی لوگوں کے درمیاں وسائل کے تقسیم کے ناقابل یقین فاصلے سے اٹھنے والے عالمی مسائل کو دیکھ کر، دنیا کے واحد معاشی نظام کو چلانے والوں میں احساس جرم پائے جاتے ھیں۔ عارف نقوی جیسے چالاک لوگ، اس احساس کو کیش کرنے کیلئے، ان سے وعدے کئے تھے، کہ اگر افریقہ اور جنوبی ایشیاء کے ھیلتھ سروسز میں سرمایہ کاری کریں، تو منافع کمانے کے علاوہ، وہ دنیا کو بہتر بنانے میں مدد بھی کرسکتے ھیں۔ وعدے تو غریبوں کیلئے ھسپتال بنانے کے تھے، لیکن، شاہ خرچیاں ذاتی خوشگذرانیوں اور سیاستدانوں پر ھوئے تھے۔ بطور مثال، ڈیوس میں نواز شریف کے ایک ظہرانے کیلئے، عارف نقوی نے 348،000 ڈالر اڑائے تھے۔

عمران خان اور عارف نقوی جیسے انقلابیوں نے کوئی مثبت تبدیلی تو نہ لاسکے، لیکن عوام میں تبدیلی کے نعرے لگانے والوں کے بارے میں جو تھوڑی بہت نیک خواھشات تھے، وہ بھی مروا ديئے۔

*Imran Inc: How Pakistani Generals manufactured ‘Mr Clean’ using disgraced billionaire’s funds

**Arif Naqvi: I raised millions of dollars for PTI

***A financial fairytale: how one man fooled the global elite

****The Abraaj Group

The East Side Story Versus Broadway Story

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 08:04:00 +0000

Around 9 AM I left the train-7 and walked from 8th Ave to 5th Ave through Broadway. Noticing the crowd of people that hurried to their jobs in the shades of the tall buildings, and particularly by seeing the food delivery guys on the bicycles, the "East Side Story" of Dr. Coppens popped in my mind and I kept thinking all the way about it. The East Side Story goes like this:

Plate tectonics (along with magmatism) has been at work to tear apart the African plate into the Nubian and Somali plates. The speed at which these two plates are diverging is only 6-7 millimeters per year but even at that slow pace, it played its roles in splitting the hominin into the separate species of the humans and chimpanzees (Plate tectonics is not all about splitting things. It also closes and makes things disappear. For instance, it is closing the Persian Gulf and one day there will be no more Persian gulf and the geopolitical maneuvering over its control).

Back to the story.

Around ten to five million years ago the rift valley in East Africa created a barrier between the hominin groups. The chimps remained in the south in their natural environment, that was the forest of the south, while the human-ancestors made small groups who faced new challenges as a result of the changes in their ecosystems. The rift valley changed the course of the winds loaded with water-vapors and hence East Africa became drier (also around 7 million years ago, some Tethys sea remnants closed and a result the monsoon weakened and the young Sahara desert appeared. It is noteworthy that some remnants of the Eastern Tethys sea still live, such as the Caspian Sea, Aral, and Black sea.) The plain and dry climate favored an upright posture for long-distance walks, the loss of hair and sweating to cool off the body in the heat. The head mostly kept the hairs to provide shed and protect the skull and openings in the skull such as eyes. Several species of hominin appeared and went extinct. In the process of human evolution, several physical and behavioral traits were favored such as, upright walk, bare-skin, shift from polygamy to monogamy, partnership, and division of labor between the male and female and also the closing gaps between their body sizes (compared to chimps populations, where males are bigger, promiscuous in their relationships and foods are not shared).

While there are other climate-change stories such as “aquatic hypothesis” and also the results of the soils from the area questions the climate change story (The soil samples in the Tugen Hill region of the rift valley didn’t show a sudden change from forest to savanna during ten to five million years), still, the overall pattern favors a climate change story that caused the evolution of the humans.

Back to the walk on the Broadway:

Walking on Broadway, I thought about the East Side story of human evolution. Ten to five million years ago, the change in climate favored certain traits. Now we are witnessing accelerated changes in both the climate and our environments. What kind of physical and behavioral traits are favored by the current changes? That was a big question mark in my head while I looked around me to see the patterns:

None of the surrounding people walked in the desert or climbed on the trees. They didn’t face the heat, fear of getting hunted, or likewise wasn’t on their way to collect or hunt for food. The hair on the skull was no more needed as all the fancy head-coverings could work better than hair. Brains took the highest work-load in the current environment and the amount of the energy that was consumed to maintain the hair was unnecessary as it had lost its basic function of providing shade. Balding or white-hair is likely the future of humanity. The coffee was a puzzling issue. I noticed a lot of people holding their coffee cups, a clear sign in shift in the food choices of humans. The humans are no more consuming food for survival but a large portion of food is keep the brain alert or meet its demands for more dopamine or pleasure chemicals. Most of people's ears were hooked to their phones. Supplying the brain with pleasure chemical by listening to music while walking to work were another sign of the primacy of brain in the lives of modern humans. The brain has become the major consumer organ in the body of modern humans. I wondered if combined the rate of accelerated consumption by brain with the outsourcing most of the brain functions such as memory, calculations, and communication to computers, the human brain slowly evolve become mostly a pleasure seeking organ?????? TO ME THIS IS A BIG PUZZLE.......

The partnership between males and females was also no more needed as I could see both males and females went to work and there were fewer pairs. If it is happening, it is a slow process and maybe in hundreds of generations; the results become more obvious. But the process has begun (it is happening all the time) and at the risk of repeating myself, the male and female partnerships for food production, storage, and distributions are no more needed. The businesses and corporations are doing all those work more efficiently. You need not go hunting for lunch. They deliver it to you. The development process is going to slow down even further. A decade or a decade and a half of the schooling is no more able to meet the needs of the current human societies (Human development became slow so the kids could have time to learn necessary skills from parents or members of the tribes to survive in savanna, desert, villages, and proto-cities. A decade of schooling was needed to acquire skills needed to survive in modern industrial societies.). Soon, lifetime learning will be needed for survival. Even toddlers have been hooked to the screens and their brains demand for the serotonin overload. Most of the body is ignored at the cost of the brain…..

In the East Side Story, the climate change came to hominin. In the Broadway story, humans are bringing the environmental (also climate change) to themselves. The concrete buildings have replaced forests, grasslands, and deserts. Our work is no more to collect food but to collect money. The division of labor between sexes is politically incorrect (I intentionally used this terminology because I don't expect something like that in the chimps society. Learning about what is politically incorrect or correct is the examples of the behavioral complexity that require education or in other words, slowing down human development. When you read news and you see a report where it mentions that A failed to tell the truth about B, instead of straightly, he lied, is another example of the behavioral complexity -While it is argued that humans have instincts/genes for grammar, we need to learn the complexity of expressions that vary across cultures even in the same society-... I can go on and on but I think those two examples suffice to illustrate the increasingly complex behaviors that human babies need to learn to survive) , digital walls have been erected between human interactions, and the brains are constantly screaming for chemical rewards…. What Broadway humans will look down the road? Perhaps, we let Hollywood do the thinking for us. WHICH IS HAPPENING MOSTLY. AS I MENTIONED EARLIER, PERHAPS OUR BRAINS ARE BECOMING MOSTLY A PLEASURE SEEKING ORGAN BECAUSE OF IMMENSE BOMBDARDMENTS OF PLEASURE CHEMICALS ON DAILY BASIS????

قبیلہ ھای شہری

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 16:08:00 +0000

غالبا بودن در یک گروه اجتماعی ادامه بقاء را بیشتر و خروج از گروہ اجتماعی خطر مرگ یا معدوم شدن را برای جانداران اجتماعی بیشتر می کند۔ برای ھمین شناخت ھای اجتماعی مانند فرهنگ، قومیت، ملیت، آیدال های سیاسی و مذهبی جزوہ عمیق روان انسانی (کہ یک موجود اجتماعی است) شدہ است، و افراد، به عنوان واحدهای یک جامعہ، نقد بر اینها را مانند حملہ بر وجود خود می پندارد۔

در عصر اینترنت، کہ عصر بمباردمان شدن روزانه افراد با اطلاعات و همچنین تبلیغات بازرگانی و سیاسی است، شناخت ھایی سنتی یا در حال فروپاشی هستند و یا هم در حال بازسازی هستند۔ یک بخش بزرگ بازسازی شناخت ھای سنتی شامل بازخوانی واقعہ های تاریخی میشود۔ اینچا باید یاد آور شوم، که تاریخ به معنای نقل واقعات، فقط یک مغالطہ است، حتی اگر این واقعہ امروز صبح اتفاق افتاده باشد، و هزاران افراد شاھد آن باشند، باز هم، ھر شاهد عینی که آن واقعه را بیان کند، بیان آن شخص، روایت شخصی آن فرد، از آن واقعہ است، و برداشت هر فرد از یک واقعہ می تواند مختلف باشد۔ تذکر این مطلب برای مصرف کنندگان اینترنت، یک حرف تکراری است، چرا که هر مصرف کننده، بناء بر تجربہ ھای فردی می داند کہ، برای دانستن نزدیکتر بہ حقیقت، از گزارشهای یک وقوعہ، باید دنبال چندین منابع برود تا بتواند چراھای خود را پاسخ بدھد۔ ‍

:آمدم بر سر مطلب

یک بخش بزرگ افرادی کہ در شهرهای بزرگ زندگی می کنند، شناخت ھای سنتی خود را در حال از دست دادن هستند۔ از آنجایی که، حس داشتن تعلق بہ یک گروہ اجتماعی، ریشه عمیق در روان انسان دارد، بخشی تلاش می کنند، تا شناخت ھای جدیدی بسازند و یا ھم در تلاش یافتن شناخت جدید هستند، کہ با فرهنگ شهرهای بزرگ همخوانی دارند۔ این تلاش ھا منجر بہ راہ اندازی قبیلہ ھای شہری شدہ است۔ شبکہ ھای اجتماعی، ایجاد و توسعه اینچنین تلاش ها را تسهیل می کنند۔ برای مثال، شناخت با "ما نود و نو درصد هستیم"، "من ھم (هشتگ)"، "پرچم رنگین کمان (دگرباشان)"، "جنبش حقوق حیوانات"، "وگانیسم و زیر بخش ھای آن"، "جنبش ارگانیک"۔۔۔۔۔ و امثال دیگر نمونہ ھایی از اشکال ابتدایی قبیلہ ھای شھری ھستند۔

بناء بر تنوع فرهنگی جامعه مسلمین، ھر گروه فرهنگی، مراسم عاشوراء را بہ سبک خودشان اجرا کرده اند و میکنند۔ حال، ما شاھد شکل گیری قبیله های شہری در مراسمات عاشورایی نیز هستیم، "جنبش حسین کیست؟"، "اهدای خون بجای قمہ زنی"، "بازاندیشی روایات کربلاء"،۔۔۔۔۔۔۔ نمونہ ھایی از این تلاش ھا ھستند۔

:نتیجہ گیری

با گسترش شہرھا، مهاجرت ھا بسوی شہرھا، گسترش و سہل دسترسی در شبکه های اجتما‏عی، و ناپید شدن دیہات ھا، قبیلہ ھای شہری منسجم تر خواهند شد۔ در این میان، افراد سہ انتخاب دارند، تلاش مثبت برای مفید ساختن این قبیلہ ھا، بی طرفی، و یا ھم روی آوردن بر "ترول گری" تحت هر عنوان که باشد۔

بہ مناسبت روز ثقافت آزرگی: حصہ ھفتوم

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 15:12:00 +0000

چرہ مہ، موجودہ دور رہ، دوری میڈ میکسزم موگوم؟

عنوان یک مقالہ، کی دہ 1973 تھیوڈوسیس ڈابژینسکی، نوشتہ کدہ بود، دہ یک ضرب المثل بائیولوجی تبدیل شودہ۔ عنوان از مقالہ استہ، "دہ بیالوجی، بغیری عینک نظریہ ارتقاء، ھیچ چیز معنی دار مالوم نموشہ۔" چرہ کی، انسان یک موجود اجتماعی استہ، و بیرو از اجتما‏ع، بقاء یک انسان، دہ خطر موفتہ، امزی خاطر،رخ ارتقاء دماغ و فکر انسانہا طرفی مظبوط کدوی تعلق ‌فرد و اجتماع بودہ۔ امزی خاطر، حس و پیوند جزوی نظام اعصاب استہ۔ و حس پیوند و حس جدایی تعلق بسیار نزدیک قد صحت اعصابی، جسمی و امیتر کیفیت زندگی یک فرد درہ۔ موگہ، وقتی کی قبلائی خان، چین رہ فتح مونہ، دہ شھری ممنوعہ، کی شامل قصرھای شاھان چین بودہ، یک شہر از خیمہ ھایی مغولی (گھر، یورت) جور مونہ، تا کی دلتنگی مغولہا، برای مغولستان کم شونہ۔ اگر تعلق یک انسان، از ریگستان صحارا ھم باشہ، و او دہ جنگل امیزان (کی سر سبزترین جای دنیا استہ) بورہ، او برای ریگستان صحارا ضرور دلتنگ موشہ۔ شاید از زمیندارھا شنیدہ باشین، کی سخت ترین حصہ کار ازونا، سودا کدو، و امیتر قصابی مال استہ، کی اونا کلان مونن۔ ای گپ برای ازاونایی کی دہ مراکز صحی کار مونہ، ھم صادق مایہ۔ مطابق اندازے نفسیاتدان ھا (بہ طور مثال، رمانی ڈوروا سولا)، اگر یگو پای خو رہ میدہ مونہ، بعد از پلسترکاری، شش تا ھشت ھفتہ میلگہ، تا استغان پای شی دوبارہ جوش بوخرہ۔ امیتر، اگر یک رشتہ انسانی، از یگو وجہ میدہ موشہ، برای اکثر انسانہا، شش تا ھشت ھفتہ میلگہ، تا استے استے، از زیری اثرات مونٹی شودوی ازو تعلق بور شونہ۔ البتہ، اگر بعد ازدو ماہ، یک فرد ھنوز متاثر استہ، او ضرورت مدد یگو ماھری نفسیات رہ درہ، تا کی، زندگی عادی شی متاثر نہ شونہ۔

مقصدی، ازی تمام مثال ھا، ای بود، کی نشان بیدوم، کی حس تعلق دہ یک گروہ انسانی، جزو بائیولوجی انسان استہ، و قانون، اخلاقیات، عقاید، کلچر، زبان، ںظریات، اقتصاد و سیاست، وغیرہ وغیرہ تولیدات زندگی اجتماعی استہ، و اصل مقصد تمام ازینا، پیوند فرد و یک گروہ انسانی رہ مظبوط کدو استہ۔

،آمدم بر سر مطلب

چرہ مہ، دور از خود خو رہ، دوری میڈ میکسزم موگوم؟ وجہ شی ای استہ، کی دہ دور از مو، اقتصاد بازار آزاد دہ یک اوتر غول تبدیل شودہ، کی خود خو رہ پابند دہ ھیچ اصول نمینگرہ، و ھر پیوند یا تعلق انسانی رہ یک کالای بازار جور کدہ۔ میخایوم، واضح کنوم، کی ما خود مہ طرفداری اقتصاد بازار آزاد استوم، لیکن، مقصد اقتصاد باید مظبوط کدوی فرد و اجتماع باشہ، و ارزش ھای و حق ھای بنیادی انسانی نمیتنہ تبدیل دہ کالای بازار شونہ (لیکن، مرز آزادی بازار دہ حقوق شخصی افراد ختم موشہ ۔ برای مثال، آدم ھایی کی خاھش درن، کی جزو یک گروہ انسانی مختلف شونہ، و یا تعلقات ھایشی ںزدیکتر شونہ، لباس، زبان، خوراک، قوانین و رسومات ازونا رہ تا یک حد قبول مونن۔ بعض افرادی آزرہ، ٹوپی و پٹوی سندھی و بلوچی موپشہ، و بسیاری از بچہ ھا لباس ھای مغربی موپشہ (بہ شمول از مہ)، و یک کلان حصہ دختروی آزرہ پوشش ایرانی، عربی و ھندی درن۔ تبادلہ فرھنگی، دہ یک معاشرے کثیر الفرھنگی قابل قبول استہ، لیکن، وقتی کی تبلیغات بازاری بعض افراد رہ قایل مونہ، کی بائیولوجی ازونا مطاب‍ق ٹرینڈ دور نیہ، و باید پیکر تراشی کنہ (برای مثال، شیشتنی، کمر، چھاتی، بینی، و جلد خو رہ سرجری کنہ)، ای یک حملہ بلے حق انسانی حساب موشہ۔ ای اینجی اسٹاپ نموشہ، چرہ کی دہ آیندہ بسیار ںزدیک، مو شاید، شاھدی مارکیٹینگ برای ڈیزاینر اولادھا خاھد بودیم (شاید ھم، از چین شروع شونہ)، کی رنگ موی،جلد، چیم، نقش و جسامت بچہ، از پیش تعیین شونہ (تا ھنوز ممکن نیہ، چرہ کی برای جینیٹیک انجینئیرنگ انسانی پابندی استہ، لیکن، دہ صورت پیشرفت زیاد دہ ازی فیلڈ، یک نہ یک روز ای طریقہ کار، قانونی و تجارتی خاھد شود)۔ امیتر، یک مثال دیگہ، حق ملکیت فردی، برای معلومات ذاتی استہ۔ ھر انسان، دہ نتیجہ تعاملات اجتماعی، معلومات تولید مونہ، کی یک حصہ ازو معلومات، شامل معلومات خصوصی موشہ (کی شامل معلومات خانوادگی، تجارتی، تخلی‍قات، تمایلات وعقاید فردی۔۔۔۔ موشہ)، کی یک فرد بہ خاطری حیثیت اجتماعی خو، نمیخایہ، دہ دسترس یک فرد، یا افرادی دیگہ باشہ۔ ای یک حق انسانی ازو فرد استہ، و حصہ ملکیت شخصی شی حساب موشہ، لیکن، دہ دور از مو، دہ بنیادی استعمال انٹرنیٹ، ھم ادارہ ھای تجارتی و ھم حکومت ھا تمام معلومات رہ کی شامل شخصی ترین معلومات موشہ، جمع آوری و تجزیہ مونن۔ و دہ بنیادی ازی معلومات، دہ بسیاری مواقع، یک فرد رہ از خود شی کدہ بہتر میشناسہ۔ مسئلہ، اینجی ھم ختم نموشہ، بلکی، دہ بنیادی تبلیغات، جہان بینی ھای مخصوص ترویج ددہ موشہ، کی بسا اوقات، باوجودی شناخت، کی ای جہان بینی، تعلق فرد و اجتماع رہ کمزور مونہ، و افراد رہ از اجتماع کٹ کدہ، بے دیست و پای مونن (کی برای دفاع از حقوق خو صلاحیت منظم شودوی خو رہ از دیست بیدن)، و یک کلان حصہ معاشرہ، دہ نامی ٹرینڈ روز، خریدار و مبلغ ازی جہان بینی ھا موشہ۔

ادامہ دارد۔۔۔۔۔۔

در اصل، مہ، ای مبحث رہ دہ صفحہ فیس بوک شروع کدہ بودوم۔ از خاطری کی صفحہ فیس بوک مہ، ترتیب الفاظ رہ گڈوڈ موکد، مجبور شودوم، ای حصہ شی رہ، دہ بلاگ خو نشر کنوم۔ دہ بابت ازی زحمت، از دوستا معذرت میخایوم۔ دوستا، بقیہ مباحث رہ دہ صفحہ فیس بوک مہ خاندہ میتنین۔ تشکر۔

https://www.facebook.com/khudadad.azara

روح اقبال (رح) سے معذرت کیساتھ

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sun, 21 Oct 2018 21:46:00 +0000

سوشل میڈیا پر، اشعار کے تشریحات پڑھ کر، متاثر ھوئے بغیر نہ رہ سکا۔

اسی تاثر کے زیر اثر، حضرت اقبال (رح) کے دو مصرعے کے تشریح پیش خدمت ھیں:

روح اقبال (رح) سے معذرت کیساتھ؛

اقبال:

ڈھونڈتا پھرتا ہوں میں اقبالؔ اپنے آپ کو

آپ ہی گویا مسافر آپ ہی منزل ہوں میں

تشریح:

شاید اقبال کے استاد، میر حسن نے زبان کے تدریس کے دوران، صوفی اشعار کے توضیحات میں، ننھے اقبال کو یہ سیکھایا تھا کہ انسان کے اصل تلاش، اپنے آپ کو پانا ھے۔ ننھے اقبال کے دل کو یہ بات لگی ھوگی، اور وہ اپنے آپ کو ڈھونڈتے ڈھونڈتے، مغربی علوم کے مرکز، لندن پہنچ گئے۔ وھاں اسکو، اقبال کے بجائے، بیرسٹری مل گئی۔ وھاں سے مایو‎س ھوکر، وہ نیٹشے کے سرزمین جرمنی، اس امید کیساتھ چلے گئے، کہ وھاں اسکو اقبال نیٹشے کے "سوپر مین" کہیں نظر آئے، مگر وھاں اسکو فلسفہ میں پی ایچ ڈی کے ڈگری سے ٹرخایا گیا۔

مغربی تہذیب سے مایوس ھوکر، اپنے آپ کو پانے کیلئے، اقبال نے اسلامی تہذیب کے شاندار ماضی کے یادگار، اندلس کا رخ کیا۔ وھاں اقبال کو اقبال کہاں سے ملتا، جہاں کے مساجد کو پیش امام اور نمازی تک نہیں ملتا۔ آخر تنگ آکر، اقبال نے واپس ھندوستان لوٹنے کا فیصلہ کیا۔ ھندوستان میں، اقبال کو اگراقبال نہیں ملتا، پھر بھی، کم از کم، کھاںے کو آم، سننے کو مولوی حضرات اور دیکھنے کو خواب اور شعر بازی کیلئے، کافی سارا فارغ ٹائم ملا۔ 😜

بدقسمتی سے، اسوقت ذاتی کمپیوٹر، انٹرنیٹ اور اسمارٹ فون ایجاد نہیں ھوا تھا، اسلئے اقبال کو کوئی لائیک اور ھارٹ نہ ملا۔ اگر اقبال کو انٹرنیٹ میسر ھوتے اور وہ بلاگ لکھتے، فیس بوک اسٹیٹس دیتے، ٹویٹ کرتے اور یوٹیوب پر وی لاگ کے بناتے، تو اقبال کے پوسٹس کو کوئی نہ کوئی شخص لائیک یا ھارٹ سے ضرور نوازتے، اور اقبال کو یہ شعر کہنے کی ضرورت نہیں پڑتے،

اثر کرے نہ کرے سن تو لے مری فریاد

نہیں ہے داد کا طالب یہ بندۂ آزاد

Artificial Intelligence & Moral Economy: An Opinion (Part IV)

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 13:00:00 +0000

In the last three blog posts on artificial intelligence, I tried to lay down the problems (core problems). While the title of the blogs advertised "A.I" and "Moral Economy", they offered very little on A.I and Moral Economy or the link between the two subjects;

In this very short blog, I want to define Moral Economy, so it becomes clear what I mean by the term (As A.I as a blanket term covers lots of subfields, each with tonnages of resources available online, I don't feel the need of defining it.)

Moral Economy is socially Progressive.

What does it mean to be socially progressive?

The basic unit of a society is an individual, and creating and sharing of opportunities from the individual (self) progressively outward, meaning, yourself comes, and those closes to you, like family and friends, neighborhood, city, state, country, continent, and the world at large. The same way, your immediate environment and progressively beyond. The same is true for an organization, company, and state. Let's say, the country A is a multicultural society with one or several dominant cultural identities and many smaller cultural identities. As the democratic system give the decision making chairs to the dominant culture or the coalition of the dominant cultural identities, the minority cultural identities and likewise, the sub-cultures are pushed/ignored and they remain on the fringes of the societal recognition or decision making chairs. Starting from the majority, a socially progressive economy (moral economy) recognizes the fringe identities and include them in the decision making. An opening of the world to women and increasing recognition of their roles is a positive sign towards of a general moral economy. However, there are ethnic, religious and cultural identities who are not as recognized as the women issues (while the women make up fifty percent of those populations). That's a direction that a moral economy needs to go.

A WORD ABOUT CONNECTION OF RELIGION WITH MORAL ECONOMY: I haven't seen any religion in the world which is progressive both inside and outside the boundaries of the religion. While, every religion is socially progressive within the community, meaning, it is emphasized to take care of family members, neighbors, friends, poor and those in needs, practically, the resources are spent inside the community of that religious identity. Religions are closed systems (which makes them conservative). An open system is more progressive.

So, does it means, a Moral Economy is based on equality?

A progressive economy can't be a pay-everyone-the-same-amount model. Pay all the same is not a sustainable and unrealistic model. Progressive means, the constant update of floor values.

Let me explain. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was the biggest achievements of post-WWII. It defined a set of floor-values applicable for all humans. That floor-values needs to updated as humans progress technologically and the means of productions and distributions become more efficient. The purpose should not be to clip the wings of those who are pushing the boundaries of human progress but give wings to those who struggle flying. I want to keep this blog limited and do not immerse in the examples (please revisit for the blog in coming weeks for examples and the role that A.I can play). But just to point to the kind of examples that I want to discuss, I like to name the concepts of inclusion of "Basic Income" and "Basic Health" (paid for with the income from natural resources- and human population defined as natural resources too).

The Popularity Of A Childhood Tactic in The Current Election Campaigns

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 17:42:00 +0000

It's very hard to predict an individual's behavior and in contrast, a certain population may show trends that make their behaviors more predictable. It's called statistics. If you remember Maxwell's name or his Kinetic Molecular Theory of gases from your high school Physics class, then, it might be interesting to know that he faced the same problem. It was hard to determine the behavior of the individual atoms/molecules of a gas, however, a known mass (a certain size population of atoms/molecules) of that gas showed predictable behaviors under certain conditions (The Maxwell Distribution Laws). Basically social sciences deeply influenced by the practice of finding trends in populations (a popular method in natural sciences).

This blog is not a study of the childhood tactics in the election campaign (though, might be an interesting study if one commits time to), as the title suggests but to share an observation that has become so obvious in the current election season that I can't resist, not sharing it 😜;

It's the general election season in Pakistan, and the two Hazara enclaves in Quetta (Hazara Town and Alamdar Road) are actively participating in the election. As you may have guessed by now, I have keenly observed the common trends and one trend that has particularly taken my attention is a tactic that is commonly used by the children for "social" dominance;

The boys (often unconsciously) try to discourage other boys from expressing themselves by making fun of their voices, choices of the words, accents and the stories they share OR make other boys question their self worth by assigning derogatory names based on their physical features, appearances, location or family affiliations. The worst part is that these derogatory remarks/names are considered "cool" and funny. The boys who use them don't think they are trying to force other boys to submission (or suggesting their supremacy) but consider them cool and their usage as funny. Well, you may consider it as bullying. But I think, it is a bit different than bullying. As I said, these kinds of behaviors are considered cool, funny and friendly. A good analogy would be the friendly fights of the carnivorous-cubs. Friendly fighting and plays not only improve their hunting skills but also determine the social ranking at the same time.

Back to the election,

While the election is an open competition and some leg-pulling is expected, however, a mature society would use the democratic processes to ENCOURAGE expressions (as the only venue towards improvements is practice) to improve the collective wisdom. Election as a democratic process is not only electing representatives but also promoting civic virtues and training future community leaders. Using the boys tactic of DISCOURAGING expressions will not produce potential leadership that will be able to lead the community in hard times.

As a Hazara, I am expressing my concern about the common usage of such a vile tactic on social media and ask concerned Hazaras to write and speak on the topic. THANKS

Lost in Space: A Review

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 14:17:00 +0000

I don't remember that I have written any review before (at least not for a TV show: but bad memory may betray me and this statement may look a lie 😜). Here comes my first review and like any other first timer, it probably ends up more about me than about the show 😳):

Reasons?

Alright, I decided to write a short review because of two "fundamental" changes that I noticed in me:

First, I haven't watched any show that was related to space. I'm bad at directions and I easily get lost in a new place (Thanks to all those who had contributed in whatever capacity in the inventions and developments of GPS and vehicles that I don't worry about directions when I do have access to GPS and a vehicle to drive). You probably have rightly guessed that I stayed away from the space-related-shows out of fear of getting lost in a place that we know very little and most of the knowledge comes from indirect observations and very limited data and very little time. So, there are much lost essential data in our reading of data and our ability to capture the data.

What Made Me to Watch, the "Lost in Space"?

My own guess was that it was a kind of escapism from what was happening around me. The awful news is killing hopes. I know, hope is organic. It regrows whenever the conditions are right. Anyway, I decided to get lost in Space, albeit via the show and to my surprise, it was a pleasant experience.

What I liked most about the show?

The Robot. I got surprised that I liked the robot and it made me keep watching the show. These days, I am struggling with a neural network design that is inspired by root systems. It's a concept that I think will work and as humanoid robots run on artificial intelligence, the robot in the movie looked cool and therefore, I give the show 5 stars just based on that cool robot 👍.

Second Change?

after the show, I am more interested in the robotics:

Humans collect data too and are good at processing the data even without understanding them. For example, people doing business using arithmetic every day without any kind of school or understanding the concepts, or people driving the car without understanding anything about the engines or people using computers and smartphones without knowing much what is running under the hood. The same is true about robots. Robots don't have to understand the concepts but are much better at capturing, storing and analyzing data and as unlike us, they do not have survival instincts embedded in them in the form of the raw emotions make them more reliable than humans. So, I think, I am more pro-robotics than before and that's a change that I noticed.

All in all, "Lost in Space" is a great story and have a lot more than the robot and if you have noticed that my review is just limited to the robot, then, you have guessed it right that I definitely recommend the show for more surprises and fun 👍.

The Bigger Picture

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sat, 28 Apr 2018 08:49:00 +0000

Passion, while an essential force behind the drive for excellence, often blinds us from seeing the whole (or broader) picture. Very often, I find the younger talents struggling with hope related their works. Too much time and energy and little results make them disoriented. While the common expectation is that, those who are sitting on the higher rungs of corporate/trade/organization ladder to offer bigger picture for the younger talents, it's the closest elders who do the job much better:

The old lady limped a bit, was a bit overweight and struggled with her sari as she moved around the stoves. She was cooking several dishes while making puffed roti, all at the same time.

On another side of the table, her young niece updated her on the latest professional achievements, she scored. The old lady listened attentively while cooking. She only talked when her niece drifted into complaints. Her talks were mostly snippets from her young self and at end of each story she reminded her niece that things have much improved.

While there was a stark difference between the spoken and body languages of the two ladies but I could see the visible gaps between sounding smart and wisdom.

While the young lady went back and forth between showcasing her achievements and worrying, the old lady listened calmly and told her personal stories to reassure her that despite ups and downs, things have always gravitated towards better. It was amusing to be a silent part of the conversation thinking that if there was a mental state such as wisdom then, the hope that things always gravitated towards better definitely qualified for it.

Artificial Intelligence & Moral Economy : An Opinion (Part III)

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 15:34:00 +0000

Shrinking Attention Span and Missing To Notice Important Societal Changes:

In the last blog on the subject, I argued that human brain is so good at recognizing patterns that it strongly inclines for overfitting which is one of the main reasons for the biases we have in the systems we build.

In this blog, I want to argue for another BIG PROBLEM that is only getting worse and that The Shrinking Attention Span which is (will) deepening our biases:

You may have donated in one of the campaigns run by one of the big box stores, giant food chains or online retails companies that had promised to match each dollar of your donation by a dollar for some noble cause (curing a disease, food drive or help a disaster hit the community and so on). You also may have read the news about the mega-philanthropic projects by founders of the fortune 500 companies. You may have also noticed the mushrooming of crowdfunding for the smart solutions of the major problems like poverty, education, health, environment, refugees, ...etc.

If you have donated in or noticed any of the above-mentioned developments, it is very likely that you may have asked yourself, despite the generosity of commoners and corporate businesses, why there is so much frustration over access to healthcare and insecurity of job, housing, and even nutritional food? No doubt, commoners, corporates, and techs are getting smarter. Why generosity and smartness are failing to solve the problems that smaller countries (with much smaller economies) have efficiently handled?

THE PLAUSIBLE ANSWER COULD BE,

While people have noticed the most advertised gestures like donation campaigns, mega-philanthropic projects and crowd-funding and so forth, they have failed noticed the most important societal change and THAT'S in words of the Michael Sandel (The political philosopher) becoming a MARKET SOCIETY (Please read about the difference between Market Economy and Market Society by following this link or you can watch here a talk by Prof. Sandel the role of Market Society in increasing economic inequality).

While the common expectation is that by the evolution and ease of access to media, people become more politically aware and their ability for cross-referencing and weighing facts increase linearly, an important factor is usually downplayed and THAT IS THE SHRINKING ATTENTION SPANS on the most important societal changes.

AGE OF TWITTER

Who could imagine that one day the most popular source of news will become a platform where tweets will be limited to 280 characters? The popularity of the twitter as the largest news source illustrates the extent of the shrinkage of attention span. Still, not convinced? How about communicating important policies of the US via twitter by POTUS? Could anyone have imagined that one day POTUS will declare war via twitter?

It was understood that the earlier exposure of children to television makes them struggle with sustaining attention in their later age. But the becoming of twitter as a communication tool for highest ranks of the government shows that it is not just common people who suffer from shrinkage of the attention span but also leadership and policymakers.

According to the WorldWideWebSize.com statistics, the size of the indexed pages on Google increased on average of 1.5 billion pages per year, in last two years (There are an estimated more than 45 billion indexed web pages on Google). Now, add to that the gaming and binge-watching as the most dominant forms of the entertainments and time passing activities.

Yes, people have access to media and they are smarter than ever but if the attention spans to the important issues have kept shrinking, then, while people know the little details of the most events, they will fail to see the big picture. AND THAT'S TRAGIC.

IN NEXT BLOG, I WILL TRY TO MAKE A CASE ON HOW AI CAN HELP US.

Artificial Intelligence And Moral Economy: An Opinion

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 14:11:00 +0000

Let's begin with three boring statements (and my hypothesis for the why, and how AI help):

1. The market economies with good managers out-performed the communist economies with equally competent managers.

2. Communist economies age at the young age.

3. Market economies with bad managers create a social dichotomy of winners and losers.

Let me give some examples so you can make sense of what I mean by those three statements.

1. Market Economies with Good Managers:

Market economy shined in countries like Japan, Germany, Asian Tigers/dragons (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan), Malaysia and the even Gulf States (oil export economies - no manufacturing or knowledge-based services- with the monarch systems of governance). No doubt, there are other Western countries with market economies much bigger than the listed economies but the purpose of the list to mention the stars.

Market economy rebuilt Germany and Japan that were destroyed by world war second. It enabled four small countries/administrative regions to be big enough economic players to be called Asian Tigers and even make the desert states of gulfs to become the major investment destinations. While the cultures, composition of markets and geography of the listed economies vary considerably, they had one thing in common and that's good management.

3. Market Economy With Bad Managers:

Before going to the second point, I brought up the second point for the obvious reason of stressing that Market Economy does not do well by default. It needs proper management;

The memory of the 2008 US government bailout of the banks after the real-estate-market-crash is still fresh. That was a defining moment in the history of the market economy that exposed the effect of bad management. While the bailout saved the banks but the fallouts of the bad management pushed the forking of the losers (who live under fear of losing jobs, homes, and saving) and winners economic classes to the extreme that led to the occupied wall street movement and election an administration that has promised to run US government as a successful business.

I can add the long list of the countries with soured market economies from the four continents of Asia, Africa, America and Europe but for the sake of staying on the point, I prefer to restrict this knol to the big names. So, let's bring in China. Everybody talks about China, one or another way. From Chinese products to ambitious Chinese land-based-economic-corridor projects to the US-China trade war. It all indicates the success of Chinese economy that is unlike any other economy is very unique. So far, it is a very well managed hybrid market economy that pulled millions of Chinese out of poverty, what communist China couldn't achieve. The Chinese model showed that well-managed communist economy soon expands to its limits but a well-managed market economy can sustain growth much better for a longer time period.

2. The short lifespan of Communist Economy:

Since the powerhouse of the communist economy barely lived for eight decades and there does not exist any mentionable communist economy, this subtitle is almost self-explanatory.

NOW, let's consider a plausible answer to the WHY:

It's common sense that smaller the number or size of something (at macro-scale), it's management is easier. Small villages are mostly self-sufficient populations that neatly recycle their resources. In comparison, the bigger the population of an area, the more they rely on the exchange of goods with other populations, the greater are their waste and more obvious are the economic segregation of the populations.

Size of Problem: My hypothesis is that the bigger the size and complexity of the economy, the greater are the chances of the mishaps and mismanagements. That's one of the main reason for an inherent short lifespan of the communist economy. The government can manage certain amounts of mishaps. Once, the number of mishaps increase, they start tearing down the whole system.

Seeing Patterns That Matters: The human factor is another reason for mishaps when it comes to the handling of large numbers/sizes. In one of the databook (I don't remember where) I read, "Human brains are so good at detecting patterns, they most often overfit." The overfittings make them see things that are either not there (noise) or make predictions based on averages ignoring big chunks of important information that actually matters.

Trusting The Judgements of the Performers Instead of Performance:

If you have closely watched the politicians, they are good performers, the composition of voices, body languages, the environments, and messages are appealing that make people follow them. In comparison, not too many people really care what kinds of laws they pass. It's too much of boring and complex information that is not pleasing at all. People want excitements and relaxations after dealing with exhausting jobs and dealing with their daily personal battles.

Transparency And Fairness Are the Building Blocks of A Moral Economy:

I guess I may better not to go into defining a moral economy here (the risk of undermining the main topic, that's setting the role of artificial intelligence in creating a fairer economy). Still, it's essential to point out that without fairness and transparency there will be not any moral economy. Having said that, I very like to stress that even if intentions are good, complexity and size of problems reduce significantly the transparency of information and hence the fairness of the decisions based on the poor understanding of information. Here comes the role of the AI.

As I prefer short blogs, I will try to add more on the topic in my next blog post.

Artificial Intelligence: An Opinion

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 18:29:00 +0000

I remember asking Ustad, "Why religion is so powerful?" an obscure question (that could be interpreted in many ways, both positive and negative).

Instead of a direct answer (as was his signature way of explaining things), he began with an example, "If we give students the choice between researching the topics and preparing their personalized set of a knowledge-base and prepared notes, which method you think, the majority of the students will choose?"

"No doubt, there are students who genuinely do go their own way out of their personal drive for knowledge but I think the majority of students prefer ready notes...."

"And it's not just the education, the same rule is equally applicable in all spheres of life. Take the example of the food. The health hazards of fast food are in the news and advertisements, almost everyday in one or other form and yet, it is the cooking at home that's in decline instead of fast food [An interesting statistics about the number of the eating places in the new york city. There are 24000 eating establishments in NYC and if you want to eat at a different place, you would need about 65 years (24000/365 = 65.75) from the day you are born to be able to eat at all the stores]."

"Don't you think that it's just a practical need of the modern lifestyle?" I asked him.

"Of course, all the ready-made products are very practical for time-crunched city dwellers but also have become a modern style as you mentioned and that's part of human nature. That's strong inclination towards easiest of the choices. And there lies the strength of both religion and culture. Religion free its followers from the burden of thinking hard in distinguishing rights and wrongs and making right choices. As a follower, one has just to believe that the religion he/she follows ae true and he/she can have the piece of the mind that the algorithms he/she are following are the best of the choices that he/she could make. Even better than that it gives you the assurances that your religion is true and others are false...."

I mentioned our conversation to bring in another phenomenon that's functioning the same way (as religion and culture) and have become part of our daily lives (most of the time, we don't even realize it) and that's the artificial intelligence. Based on the digital footprints (the data we feed by our online activities), specific products, services, news, opinions and organizations (even friends and social groups are recommended) appear in search engines and millions of the other potential products, services, and opinions do not reach us. Therefore, we can say that services empowered by artificial intelligence are not only thinking for us but on the long-run influence our personalities. We do not need to have machines embedded in our bodies to be defined as bionics. We can claim that we are already bionics and artificial intelligence are replacing traditional roles of culture and religions in many ways. Once a cultured person or a religious person easily easy identify himself or herself as belonging to the particular group and see the group as an extension of himself/herself. That simple categorization is disintegrating. Artificial intelligence is designed by companies and in addition to the personalizations of the education, culture, and lifestyles, they also promote the cultures and worldviews beneficial to those companies and therefore, except the small number of individuals who do take the burden of thinking for themselves, the majority of people let AI think for them.

Continued....

Malala and the Cultural Struggles Between Large and Peripheral Cities

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sun, 01 Apr 2018 04:28:00 +0000

I planned to wake up, early. I woke up at 3 a.m. I had still time to get up, so I checked my social news feed. There were fierce battles between the two opposing camps over the return of Malala. In fact, it was amusing like the WWE wrestling shows than serious debates. Rationalizations, sarcasm and faking of news to undermine the opponent point of views were at their best, something I could rarely find in the traditional news outlets (except in the comment sections 😜). Besides, worrying about Malala's safety (although, being an international celebrity she has better security, now), I couldn't resist thinking that despite all the shortcomings, the original confusions and emotions expressed with broken language and poor illustrations in social media were more capable in capturing the interests of the visitors than what professional reporters try to achieve with the professional maskings of their reports (professional reporters still have the advantage of higher confidence levels 😑). Anyhow, what I understood from all the debates were that Malala as a person was not the concern. The concern was the shift of cultural leadership from big seats of power like Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad to the peripheral cities. This is now a continuous process. Persons who manage to go outside the circle of the big cities are seen as anomalies (In popular culture, for example, the break out of the artists to outside world (particularly Bollywood) were not welcomed as such, too).

To outside world, Malala was seen as a girl who had stood for the education of girls (an anti-Taliban voice, to sum up). But I surprised noticing that many of those who opposed Malala were not conservatives (there were highly educated women, too).

Before going further, I want to emphasize that the cultural war between big cities and peripheral cities are not just limited to Pakistan. It's a regional phenomenon. In neighboring Afghanistan, this battle is the fiercest. The like battles (when become imbalanced by foreign interferences) have torn apart countries like Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain. I'm expecting it in Saudi Arabia too if the country continues to open up in a zigzag manner (the way she is going these days). Once the peripheral cities/populations find themselves culturally compatible with traditional cultural leaders of the country, then the culture war will become visible and the desperate attempts of the traditional cultural leaders to maintain their status quo will turn into open cultural battles. (Please see the additional note at the end of the knol)

Back to the story:

While reading the arguments, I fell back to sleep, and dreamt:

Children were picking sellable items among garbage pile in the garbage-tub (The municipality used to build brick-walled-garbage-dumping-sites in the neighborhood that were called garbage-tubs). A garbage truck dumped its load on the garbage picking children. I didn't see what happened to other children but I saw a girl struggling to get out the pile of the garbage. The pile of garbage was heavy, stinking and suffocating. She was about to give up when she felt something hit her head. It was the bucket of an excavator. She cried in pain and grabbed firmly the bucket. The excavator pulled her out of garbage and lifted her in the air. She cried for help and the spectators cheered and applauded her. She collected herself and felt like a heroine.

I don't see any patterns in the dreams and do not believe in the interpretations. But nonetheless, it was an amusing dream that very likely had some connections with the current divide on a girl from a periphery area that has become a cultural symbol. And that symbolic representation has made her a target practice of the politico-cultural struggles between metropolitan and peripheral cities.

*********

Additional Note:

With the exception of East Asia (which somehow managed to transition to modern world in more organized manner, if not linearly), the rest of Asia has maintained its historical ethno-cultural identities. Historically, while the boundaries of the kingdoms shifted, the boundaries of ethno-cultural identities remained mostly unchanged. The game of power was played by changes of alliances between those identities. The imposition of nation states based on the culture of the majority population has pushed the smaller cultural identities into the peripheries. It's slowly changing (Enriched by global cultural influences, particularly Western cultures and empowered by the digital communications, the peripheral cultures are reinventing their identities. I may go in more details in a future knol on the issue) and that's creating lots of confusions and chaos. Controversial individuals and events are not all linked to this phenomenon. The Syrian experience has made people even more sensitive and the reactions to the controversial individuals and events were taken more seriously (as existential threats) now than any time before.

Chop chop chop VS. Balancing: A tribute to Asma Jahangir

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sun, 11 Feb 2018 16:01:00 +0000

An elderly lady had advised my mom that for the children to become independent, it was very important to supplement their education with some trade apprenticeship. She had taken that advice by heart and encouraged us to master at least a trade:

When I was a high school student, I started working in the evening shift as an apprentice at a woodwork factory. Part of the job was chopping the logs to prepare them for turning. I loved that part of the job. All I had to do was chop chop chop. I wished the trade just required one tool and that was an ax, then, all woodworkers were the happiest people among the population. Chopping released all the anxiety and made me feel good. I understood that chop chop chop was one of the best escapes, if not the only great escape.

Another part of the job was balancing of the chairs. I hated that part. Wood, fresh out of the lathe machine was very sensitive to humidity and changed shapes and cracked during balancing. Balancing was mostly done by the chief technician. I understood that balancing was very stressful till one acquired the required skills and experiences.

Back to today's main story:

Today, lots of people are offering their tributes to Asma Jahangir (the human right lawyer) for her lifelong stands for the rights of all ethnicities, religious minorities as well as women, laborers and other oppressed parts of the society.

Photo Source: http://www.human-dignity-forum.org/2013/04/dr-asma-jahangir/

All along, I saw Asma Jahangir as a strong voice for the balance in the society. In every forum, she criticized sections of the governments and the society for their chop chop chop worldviews/strategies as the sole solution for the country's problems. Asma struggled all her life to convince the government and the people to adopt a balancing worldview (instead of temporary feel-good escapism for blaming and targetting a vulnerable part of society). Today, she died but the majority of the population and the government still love the feeling of the chop chop chop. On majority pages of everyday news outlets (both social and MSM) one encounters the suggestions for chopping this and chopping that. Chop chop chop has become a dominant culture and is rising. And we definitely are going to miss Asma a lot. May her great soul rest in peace.

Playing with Gephi

noreply@blogger.com (Khudadad ) — Sat, 03 Feb 2018 02:39:00 +0000

Other than during middle school time, when the primitive computer games were popular, I don't remember that I liked the computer games. But recently, I find myself liking a lot playing with computer programs (particularly python, specifically, its scikit-learn library and jupyter notebook) and data analytics software. I have just started with Gephi and is already in love with it. Following is my first Gephi attempt. It's very crude (as data are all coded and without the reference to an original data table or a description of it, it's not much informative.). However, I like the endless possibilities that it offers in a time when we are submerged in relational datasets. I hope you enjoy my first attempt (even if you don't get anything out it. 😜)