Informational Biases

It has never been easier to get your viewpoint across to other people. The cost and ease of publishing your thoughts online are low and getting lower all the time. We should be the most widely knowledgeable generation ever. We have the means to assimilate multiple points of view on any issue and reach an informed conclusion regarding any current or past issue. But there is a problem with the way we access the information and points of view on the Net. All of us have biases. We tend to favor some opinions over others.

For example, for many around the world, the US is a bogeyman whose actions are always suspect and who can do no right. For many others particularly Americans, the US is a force for good whose actions are almost always above reproach and who can do no wrong. Each group of people will tend to seek out information that support their particular point of view. In the past, this natural bias did not matter a great deal. The main sources of information for most people were newspapers, TV and to some extent movies. These are passive media in the sense that the decision of which story to carry and which to ignore was decided by someone else for nearly all people. As a result, all of us were individually exposed to alternate points of view. We may not have liked them. We may have considered the people who held such views to be idiots. We may not have read them in detail. But at least we were forced to glance at them and thereby acknowledge their existence and occasionally their relevance. The Net broke this gate-keeping role. Now individuals have the ability to seek out all points of view on their own including ones that the old gatekeepers would filter out.

However, keep in mind that we are all biased as I mentioned above. We naturally tend to seek out opinions that reinforce our current viewpoint. This is a form of validation for us. The Net makes this process easier and easier. The algorithms that power search engines are "learning" algorithms. They try to predict what an individual would like to view based on his or her past viewing habit. Since we tend to view like minded opinions and information that validates our current views more than others, over time we will only be shown such opinions and information by them. Other opposing or even different opinions and information will get filtered out. The real problem is that we will not even realize that this filtering is taking place. Search engines and social media sites are the gateways through which we enter the Net. We trust that they will retrieve the most relevant information for us out of this vast sea. That is exactly what they try to do. But the information they retrieve reflects our biases. Entire goldmines are effectively shut out of our view and we don't even know it.

A question arises over here: is this a relevant issue or is this being like the boy who cried wolf too many times? I think this is not just a relevant issue, it is a very important issue. When we restrict ourselves to one particular set of information or a particular point of view, we are actually making ourselves less informed and less knowledgeable. We will be missing information that will give us a more holistic view of our surroundings. We will easily end up missing trends and information that can help us socially and economically. Our personal development becomes stunted and instead of growing mentally, we will shrink instead holding ever narrower and more prejudiced opinions and views which over time will be less and less relevant to our surroundings.

In addition, society will suffer. People in the same country will easily end up living in separate versions of reality. Physically they will be living together; mentally they will be universes apart. Already we see this trend in the US where liberals and conservatives seem to be living in separate worlds despite living in the same country. This has had political repercussions. A major strength of American democracy was the ability of people with different points of view to sit together and come up with joint solutions to problems. Neither side may have been happy but at least progress was made. Today, such political compromises have become extremely difficult resulting in deadlocks and paralysis. This has strong repercussions economically. Socially, people are increasingly inhabiting separate bubbles. They will know what is happening inside their particular bubble but will be unaware of what is happening elsewhere. This results in a weakening of the bonds that holds society together.

The Internet holds the promise of connecting everyone on the planet in a fashion that was simply not possible before. Not only that, it is a vast and expanding repository of information and knowledge. What used to be locked away in books and other offline media is now being put on the Net. New ways of finding and making sense of this information are being developed. Most new technologies are incremental. They allow us to do what we used to do in a better or faster (often both) fashion. The Net on the other hand is transformational. It will change the way we interact with each other and make possible new cultural, scientific and economic forms. It will be very unfortunate if we were unable to take full advantage of this because of our biases. As individuals and as a society, we will be all the poorer.

Related articles

• Internet Isolationism (reelslow.wordpress.com)
• The Filter Bubble (flyingpenguin.com)
• Beware online "filter bubbles": Eli Pariser on TED.com (ted.com)
• Your internet is wrong! Beware of online "filter bubbles" - TED video of Eli Pariser (socialwayne.com)
• Who Decides What You Read? Hint: It's Not You (bigthink.com)

The Intolerance of Secularism

It is a great irony that secularism which rests on a foundation of tolerance is itself very intolerant. Secularism is defined as the ability by adults to make decisions regarding themselves free from overt religious compulsion. The key over here is the ability to make decisions in an environment free from coercion. Most people have religion in mind when they think about coercion but what about cases where someone willingly adopts religious rules and practices and is prevented from doing so by secular authorities? Is this not a case where secularism is being intolerant?

The case in point is the burka ban in France. A tiny minority of French Muslim women wear this garment and yet from the hysteria that it has generated in France, one would get the impression that every single French woman is under imminent threat of being forced to wear the garment. Grand principles were invoked in the debate leading upto and beyond the ban. Yet is not the cardinal principle of secularism mentioned above on which France sets such store being violated? A woman who freely (and this is a key point) wants to wear the burka is forcibly being prevented from doing so. Should not secularism also include the ability of adults to make personal choices free from secular coercion? How can you have one and not the other?

It should be kept in mind that any dispensation, secular or religious, will impose certain restrictions on society. These restrictions are necessary for the smooth functioning of society. Without them, anarchy would reign fairly quickly. Most of these restrictions are common across societies. Certain restrictions are imposed based on particular social circumstances of the societies involved. The real issue is the ability of adults to make informed personal choices on all other matters free from all types of coercion.

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• France wakes up to a burka ban as Sarkozy unveils a new era (independent.co.uk)
• The great unveiling unravels French secularism (humanistlife.org.uk)
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Perceptions

Nobody in the world views the world as it actually is. All of us have filters in place designed to eliminate unwanted information. Without these filters, we would all suffer from massive and literal information overload. So we learn to ignore what is unimportant and focus on what is important. Doing so was literally a matter of life and death in the past. Hunter-gatherers need to be able to distinguish between the important and the unimportant. This represents the difference between having lunch and being lunch.

In the modern information age, the value and importance of these filters has increased enormously. We are inundated in an ocean of data points most of which are irrelevant to our situation and needs. The problem is that we are not attuned to this new era of always on, always available information. As a result our mental filters are not yet fully in place. They let in too much information which seems important but is actually not. So our email boxes are overflowing with emails that we will never read again and indeed will forget about. We buy books because they seem important to our self development but actually are not. We read reports that may contain information that we think we may need. Six months later we discover that we have never used that information.

The filters that we create and use give each of us different points of view of the same outside inputs. Thus each of us creates unique points of view that seem real and objective to us when as a matter of fact they are anything but.

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Perceptions and Reality

There are many ways of viewing any particular event, many realities if you will. A highly significant event has occurred: Osama Bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan by US forces. The most wanted man by the US was finally traced and eliminated. There are three realities to this event that I want to highlight. One is the death of Osama Bin Laden. The other is the violation of the territorial sovereignty of Pakistan by the US. The third one is the impact of this event on Pakistan's geo-political situation. One event, three realities. All three occurred. All are real.

What is telling is the reactions to these two realities by governments and people around the world. It is here that we see the importance of perceptions. Consider the first reality: the death of Osama. The news was greeted with delirious joy by Americans as the considered perpetrator of the greatest peacetime attack on US soil was perceived to have been brought to justice. In Pakistan, reactions were far more ambiguous. Some people rejoiced, some mourned, a large number were indifferent to the fact of the death. In one country, a criminal and a terrorist was perceived to have been brought to justice. In the other, for some people, a hero was martyred and for others a troublesome character was removed from the scene. Even the circumstances of the death are being perceived differently. In the US, the death is being viewed as being unavoidable. Osama Bin Laden was highly unlikely to meekly surrender and time was of essence to the US forces. Besides, their orders were to eliminate and not to capture; this order had been given by a legitimate authority viz. the President of the United States. In Pakistan on the other hand, the perception is different. If US forces have the capability to travel deep inside another nation and carry out a major operation, why could they not also disable their target? Why did they not capture him and produce him before a court? Americans value their justice and court system. Why not give this man a fair trial? After all, a cardinal principle of the justice system is that all are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Why not give the man a chance to defend his actions? There is also a related but relevant question: what are the Americans trying to hide that they did not want to bring their man to trial? One reality has led to widely differing perceptions. These in turn generate different types of reactions.

The second reality to this event is the violation of the territorial sovereignty of Pakistan by the US. The fact is that in order to take out Osama, US troops had to enter and operate deep in Pakistani territory. How has this fact been perceived in the two most affected countries? In the US, this is not even a consideration. The US has reserved for itself the right to strike anywhere it deems fit, at any time it deems fit against anyone it deems necessary. For Americans this is a proper and legitimate given the important role that their country plays in upholding international law. All international US actions are viewed in this prism. The world is a dangerous place. International law needs to be upheld and given the economic and military might of the US, if the country has to penetrate another country for this purpose then so be it. On the other hand, in Pakistan and in many other countries, this is viewed as an intolerable affront to the country's sovereignty. When the US sends its troops into another territory, it is behaving as a bully using its military muscle in an illegitimate manner. This perception then drives resistance which in turn is viewed in the US as being illegitimate and intolerable.

The third reality is the impact of this event on Pakistan's geo-political situation. For Americans, this is not even a factor. For Pakistanis, this has a major impact. If the US can get away with sending its soldiers into Pakistan's territory with impunity, what is to stop others, specifically India, from doing the same? Suddenly Pakistan starts to feel vulnerable and this perceived vulnerability at both a governmental and a societal level will drive reactions to the event. The view in Pakistan then becomes that the US is not to be trusted. In turn, this feeds into a view at the popular level in the US that Pakistan is playing a double game and is therefore not a reliable ally.

One event has occurred. It is being perceived differently at different levels. These perceptions are far more important than any objective view. It is these perceptions that will eventually drive popular and governmental reactions. The danger is that these differing perceptions will lead to a massive increase in distrust and lead to instability where stability is required.

Related articles

• Osama bin Laden's Death Survey (surveyswipe.com)
• Video: Is Pakistan an enemy of the U.S.? (cbsnews.com)
• Live tweets of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and other links (aleksandreia.wordpress.com)
• Osama bin Laden death 'liveblogged' by Twitter user (mirror.co.uk)
• Osama Killing, Pakistan Media Reaction. (ramanan50.wordpress.com)

Royally Married

Royalty continues to exert a strange fascination over us. The interest shown in the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton was phenomenal with about 2 billion people worldwide watching the event live. It really does not matter what your views may be about royal families. You may consider them to be scum of the earth and leeches on the body of the nation, when it comes to their activities, most of us are highly interested. Consider the situation like this: if you have read any article or seen any program on royalty, then it means you consider them to be important enough to devote a certain portion of your life to knowing more.

Another thing that comes out in relation to royalty is class consciousness. In the case of William and Kate, we have a situation where two people met in university, liked each other, started dating and eventually got married. All perfectly ordinary in Western societies and completely unexceptional except that one of the parties happens to be royalty and the other a commoner. This was an aspect that was highlighted throughout the relationship and especially in the run up to the marriage. A commoner marrying royalty! A descendant of coal miners marrying into a descendant of people who had not seen the inside of a mine for centuries. Very few people seem to ask the question so what? Is there anything special about the genetic heritage of royalty that sets it apart from "commoners"? Ofcourse not. This reaction speaks volumes about our attitudes towards people and our assumptions regarding class.

There is a kind of snobbery in this. The feeling that I am better than someone else because I am richer, or better looking or come from a more prominent family or whatever. The feeling that my genetic stock is in some fashion superior because of my station in life. So we give those less fortunate or different from us pejorative terms like trailer trash, bimbo, redneck, camel jockey and many others. This feeling is also what impels many people to obsessively research their ancestry usually in the hope of discovering some sort of a royal link. Most of us, specially if we are middle class, suffer from it. Perhaps this is at the root of our obsession at the "common" origins of Kate Middleton.

On Privacy

One of the most contentious issues today is that of privacy which is considered to be a universal right. In essence, privacy is the right to be undisturbed in one's private life. Translated this means that a person should be free to do whatever they like in their private capacities as long as they are not breaking any laws and/or directly and to the maximum extent possible indirectly not causing harm to anyone else.

The concept of privacy differs between culture. The particular concept of privacy highlighted above springs from a Western concept of the uniqueness and importance of the individual. The idea of the family is restricted to one's immediate family: parents and siblings. There is no larger concept of the family. Even in this context, there is an emphasis on the individual and his or her right to choose any course of action. Thus parents can help a child but have no right to dictate the latter's decisions. The bonds of the family get looser with time and for many if not most individuals they eventually disappear. Thus the phenomenon of old people's homes in which some children visit (regularly or not) while others do not do so. This particular emphasis on privacy and the resultant concept of individualism is also responsible atleast partially for the periodic stories that emerge of old people dying alone in their apartments or homes and no one realizing it sometimes for several years.

Paradoxically, the Western emphasis on the individual and his or her right to privacy results in a strong sense of community. Humans are social animals and will always seek to become part of a large group. Since the larger family plays little role in the lives of individuals, the community in which they live in takes on that role: community in this context includes both neighbors and friends. This sense of community also translates into a strong identification with the nation which in this context can be regarded as a community of communities living within a particular geographic boundary.

Other societies have a different concept of the role of the individual. Asian societies place a far greater importance on family. Here the individual is not so important but the larger family is. In this context, family goes beyond parents and siblings and includes aunts, uncles, cousins and sundry other relatives. There is no right to privacy as the concept is understood in the West in such societies. Other individuals can and do interject themselves in important personal decisions. Thus for example, in South Asian societies when a marriage is to be considered, it is not just a matter between the two individuals concerned. The larger families of both parties get involved and start giving their input which cannot be discounted. This particular concept of the role and rights of the individual generally translates into a strong sense of family and clan but not into a strong sense of community. So we see that the particular Western concern about privacy does not hold much resonance in other parts of the world.

Western societies have considered their systems and concepts to be superior to those of other societies. This view was articulated and bolstered in the 18th and 19th centuries when Western rule and influence extended over the globe. This view is held with strong conviction in the West till today.

Which conception is better? Both have their strong and weak points. The Western concept of the individual and their rights allow for a high degree of personal experimentation. This has also necessitated a high tolerance for failure. Part of the dynamism of Western societies comes from this ability to experiment without strongly negative social repercussions on the individual. On the other hand, family bonds are weaker and continue to decline over time. Individuals are thus deprived of the experience and counsel of their elders and so similar types of mistakes are made by successive generations. Another consequence is felt in old age when many individuals find themselves largely abandoned at a stage in their lives when their ability to look after themselves is severely diminished.

The Eastern emphasis on the family means that individuals benefit from the experience and counsel of older generations. They can thus obtain valuable help and guidance in their personal decision making and other aspects of their lives such as rearing children. In return, individuals tend to be cared for by their families in old age. However, there is a much lower degree of personal experimentation and a vastly lower tolerance for failure. Important issues like career or marriage are not decided by the individual alone but via a consensus within the larger family structure.

Related articles

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Arrogance

Arrogance is a fascinating emotion. No body likes it and yet all of us are guilty of it to some degree. What is interesting about this emotion are the reasons people are arrogant about. Almost inevitably, the main cause of arrogance for any one has nothing to do with any personal achievement. Indeed people who have actually achieved something are usually not arrogant. Root causes of arrogance largely stem from family lineage or family wealth or looks. All of these things are essentially luck of the genetic lottery. Someone born to a rich family could just as easily have been born on the other end of the social spectrum. If you are blessed with good looks, you personally had nothing to do with it. So in cases of obvious arrogance, there is no firm foundation for this emotion. The reason for which a person is arrogant is completely outside that person's control.

There is also a form of arrogance that emerges in the work place. The most common reasons for this arrogance stem from one's vast network of connections or from one's qualifications vis-a-vis co-workers or from too rapid promotions or from a hugely inflated sense of self worth: a feeling that you are God's gift to the company. This is also an overt form of arrogance. Such persons are generally extremely unpleasant to work with and morale inevitably suffers with a consequence of a higher turnover. Such persons also tend to get shunned and attempts are made to block them off into a silo.

There is a much more subtle form of arrogance than these though. Almost all of us suffer from this form regardless of how we view ourselves. The basic definition of arrogance is an offensive display of superiority or self importance or overbearing pride. The vast majority of people consider themselves superior in some respect to others. Consider the behavior of drivers on the road. At some point, most of us have accelerated just enough to prevent somebody from overtaking us. A primary feeling in such cases is why should this driver get ahead of me. Does he think himself better than me? This is an example of arrogance. Or consider this: you are at a traffic light (or going about in the market) and a beggar approaches. How do you feel? Again arrogance. This form is extremely difficult, almost impossible to control. It also betrays us in our decision making. All too often we decide not to pursue a course of action because it is "beneath" us even if said course would have been beneficial either financially or otherwise. As soon as we think like this, we exhibit a subtle form of arrogance.

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Copyrights and Innovation - III

There is a tension between public interest and private interest as far as copyrights are concerned. When creative works are widely, commonly and freely available, the cultural space of a society expands. It leaves behind a richer legacy for future generations. Existing creators often use the work of previous generations. For example a book like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies takes and extends the original work in an entirely new way. Such a book would simply not be possible if the original was still strongly protected by copyrights. The fantasy elements in the Harry Potter series were first articulated and defined in earlier works. This series takes those elements and mixes them in entirely new ways. As a result we have a new set of books that has not only delighted old and young alike but also resulted in spin offs like movies, fan fiction, parodies etc. Our cultural space has been expanded and enriched and the stage has been set for possible future creations.

Copyrights however act as a toll gate in this process. They do not allow the free mixing of ideas that results in important new works. Instead they force one vision onto society. Interesting combinations are not allowed to occur. Furthermore, only approved creators are allowed through the toll gate and only after the payment of proper entry fee. Again the cultural expansion that occurs from the free mixing of ideas is stymied.

As mentioned previously, copyright issues also affect economic development. However they do more than that. They also affect scientific development. In order to be taken seriously, research papers need to be published in a peer reviewed journal. While this process raises its own set of issues, my concern here is with the resultant effects of copyrights. Scientific journals are the academic equivalent of gatekeepers in the commercial world. By locking up knowledge of new developments, they actually hamper advances in science. Unless they can pay the fees demanded, other scientists - specially in the developing world - are unable to access the new knowledge. Science, more than any other field, builds on previous work. Every single scientist today, every single Nobel laureate has built upon and extended the work of previous generations. When today's developments are locked up tightly under copyrights, we actually slow down the scientific advances that will enhance and enrich our living standards tomorrow. Who knows if an article in a journal leads to an idea that ends up in a cure for cancer or that results in a viable form of space travel. If the bright spark is not allowed access, such important developments can get delayed maybe indefinitely.

In recent times, copyrights have been extended onto new creative forms. This first started off with movies and songs. Thus Disney was able to get copyright protection for Mickey Mouse, a character that created a new cultural reference. Interestingly, Mickey debuted in a film called Steamboat Willie which was a parody of another film called Steamboat Willie Jr. Thus we see that the earlier film created the cultural space for the introduction of an iconic new character. Later this protection got extended to the new medium of television and later still this was extended to computer software.

The emergence of personal computers, associated software and networking has vastly boosted the importance of copyrights. Before computers, copying a work was a tedious, difficult and costly procedure. Afterwards, it became simple and virtually cost free. The business models that had worked well in a pre personal computer age failed spectacularly post personal computers. Another development of the computer age has been that algorithms - the set of instructions that a computer can follow without human intervention - have become very important and copyrightable. So now, we have companies fighting over copyright issues that may seem arcane but which affect all of us now and will do so in the future. The decisions made today will affect how the culture of the future will develop. Unfortunately, these decisions are being made by entities whose primary interest is in locking down as much knowledge as they can for as long as they can. They do this because the immediate rewards are so great even though in the long run all of us will be impoverished.

Are copyrights needed? Yes and no. Individual creators need some form of protection for a period of time in order to possibly benefit from their creations. They may choose to give it away for free as some record labels do in order to create awareness but that should be their choice. The critical element is that of time. How long should individual creators be allowed to benefit from their creations. Here there is no single solution. What if the individual has a single hit in his or her lifetime? Should copyright protection expire early? In such a case, I think it should not. What about creators who have multiple hits? In their case, copyright protection can be dropped at an earlier stage. Ongoing works like blogs would certainly need to be protected for the life of the creator (or atleast a reasonable estimate of the same). Indeed after a specified period of inactivity, ongoing works can be released into the public domain.

In the case of corporations, copyright protection has to be limited. Companies are not reliant on any single hit. They have a steady ongoing stream of revenue. After having benefited for a period of time, why should they be allowed to enjoy what will essentially be rental income. Forcing earlier works into the public domain will not only allow other people to take the original into new directions, it will also force the company to innovate aggressively. In the end, our society and our culture will be better off.

Related articles

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• Copyrights--Can the Right Come to its Senses? (chariotofreaction.blogspot.com)
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Copyrights and Innovation - II

Copyrights create monopolies. Only one party is allowed to dictate how the copyrighted item is to be used. In a digital environment, copyrights serve as a powerful tool for extracting rental revenue, for control and for maintaining existing business models. Copyrights were not so important in an earlier age when copying things was difficult and expensive. Now computers and digital devices allow for an infinite number of perfect reproductions at a minimal cost. This threatens existing business models in several industries specially the creative ones. As a result, the importance of copyrights has suddenly exploded as companies and many artists use this as a mechanism to protect themselves from a massively unsettling change.

Earlier I argued that copyrights do not enhance innovation. The argument that they do so is based on a misunderstanding of the reasons why people innovate. The other argument passed in favor of copyrights and their strong enforcement is based on the right of the innovator to benefit from his/her innovation. This is a stronger albeit still flawed argument. Copyright law came into existence at a time when individuals were the main source of innovations. The argument that they should benefit from their work had validity then. To make that argument today is to ignore the nature of the copyrights that are now being granted. The majority of copyrighted material today is possessed by corporations. Most of the most iconic symbols of our age are under the copyright and this protection is being enjoyed largely by companies and not by individuals.

Companies are supposed to grow by bringing innovating new products and services. Instead what is happening today? By copyrighting material and preventing others from using it, companies are able to enjoy extraordinary profits which is a violation of economic efficiency which is a foundation of the capitalist system. A more insidious effect is that we have ceded the evolution of our culture to entities whose sole raison d'etre is to make money for a privileged group of individuals (their investors). Take Mickey Mouse as an example. This is an iconic symbol of our childhood - indeed of children around the world. Yet there is only one way in which Mickey Mouse can be presented to the world and that is the Disney way. Alternate expressions using the Mouse are prevented because of copyrights. The result is that our culture is impoverished. What we bequeath to our children and grandchildren will be a vision that has been dictated by a company for purely commercial considerations.

Copyrights also hamper economic development. This is an something that is often not appreciated. Look at the history of development of developed countries. Each and every one of them ignored copyright issues when they were developing. The reason is that ideas are extremely important at all stages of development. Developing countries need access to the latest ideas and techniques in various industries in order to implement them properly and thus grow their economies. The problem is that copyrights raise the cost of ideas and developing countries usually lack resources. For example, access to the latest scientific, management and trade journals is very expensive. If there is strong enforcement of copyrights, then most countries would not be able to access these ideas and as a result will steadily fall behind other countries in developing and growing their economies. It should be kept in mind that this is not just a problem for developing countries. Poor people will move around in search of economic opportunities as they always have. There will be (and has been) an upsurge in economic migrations driven by lack of domestic opportunities which in turn is caused by harsh copyright laws.

Related articles

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Copyrights and Innovation

Copyrights evolved as an incentive program. Give people a temporary monopoly in the form of a copyright and they will have an incentive to innovate. This begs the question what motivates innovation? The basic premise behind copyright is that innovation springs from commercial considerations. Somebody will innovate only if he or she can see some sort of eventual payoff. However, innovation comes from need and not from purely commercial considerations. Even in the absence of copyrights, innovation will still take place because the need to do so will be there. In the entire debate on copyright law and copyright issues, this point is usually overlooked.

So the question is does the presence of copyrights enhance innovation, has no effect on it or dilute it? And how does innovation happen in the first place? There is a lot of confusion on this latter point. The general impression is that innovations spring full blown springing seemingly out of nowhere. This is not and never has been the case. All innovations are additive in the sense that they rely and build on previous work. The ability to do so freely is a critical factor in spurring innovation. Where a monopoly is granted that prevents such additive work, innovation comes to a screeching halt.

Do copyrights enhance innovation. The short answer is no, they do not. The reason for this is the nature of protection that copyrights give. Granting a copyright to a product or a service or a process or whatever means giving a monopoly to a private party. All monopolists behave in the same fashion: they become rent seekers. The desire and ability of a monopolist to innovate declines in proportion to the length of the monopoly. This is true in all cases of a monopoly including market based ones. To illustrate this point consider the browser wars of the 1990s between Netscape and Microsoft. During the tussle itself, there was great innovation in browsers. When the latter won out, there was a resultant market based monopoly. The end result was that all innovation in browsers came to a halt. This situation remained until Firefox came along and eventually broke Microsoft's monopoly. In the case of a government granted monopoly (in the form of a copyright), there is no such happy ending as long as the monopoly remains. The copyright holder has very strong incentives to extract maximum revenue by charging high prices and at the same time has no incentive to improve upon the product (except perhaps incrementally) whatsoever - a classic case of rent seeking. Copyrights at best freeze the innovation process and at worst dilute it.

Related articles

• Copyrights--Can the Right Come to its Senses? (chariotofreaction.blogspot.com)
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Controlling Information - II

There is an aspect of controlling information that is not often recognized. It is a reflection of the way in which most governments tend to view their citizens. Most of us think of ourselves as rational beings with the ability to differentiate between right and wrong and decide for ourselves what is the best course of action to take in any given situation. However, governments have a tendency to view us as essentially children in need of guidance. This is a very basic albeit unarticulated justification of secrecy which lies behind controlling information.

A question that can be asked at this point is so what if information is controlled in some fashion? Surely some level of secrecy is desirable at various levels. So long as most information is in the public, does it matter is some is hidden for some time. Good questions to which my answer is that it matters a great deal.

Controlling information has several aspects. One is the secrecy element which has been touched upon previously. Another element is distortion. Information can be hidden not just by hiding it but also by distorting it so that the general public's understanding is different from that of the "insiders". A prime example is the invasion of Iraq. Information was not really hidden in the run up to the war. Instead it was distorted so that most Americans got the (completely false) impression that Iraq was closely connected with the events of 9/11. In a much cruder fashion, the Arab dictatorships that are facing popular revolt are engaged in the same game. They seek to paint the uprising with the brush of Al Qaeda without presenting any proof of the alleged connection.

Distortion is also carried out by non government actors. These include think tanks, agenda driven NGOs, corporations and rich individuals. For a long time, the tobacco industry presented distorted information downplaying the risks of smoking. In recent times, Big Oil has been downplaying the risks of global warming by presenting distorted (and sometimes outright false) information. They seek to give an impression that the science behind global warming is still in doubt even though the overwhelming majority of scientists have been talking and writing about the same for a long time now. The objective over here is to prevent change and create conditions for business as usual to carry on for the sake of short term profits.

The result of controlling information can be disastrous for individuals and societies. The invasion of Iraq and the subsequent uprising resulted in large numbers of men being killed. This left hundreds of households where suddenly women had to become providers in an atmosphere of high insecurity. Not surprisingly, there was an upsurge in prostitution as these women sought to make ends meet in a hostile environment. The denial campaign led by the tobacco companies resulted in a large number of tobacco related deaths that could otherwise have been prevented. Global warming is already affecting and will continue to affect millions of people. There will almost certainly be a huge upsurge in refugees. Already the number of people headed towards the developed countries has resulted in a massive uptick in xenophobia amongst the natives. What will happen when global warming really kicks in? The escalation in tensions that is bound to occur could easily end up in major conflicts which have a high probability of going nuclear.

Controlling information is not just about control. It is also a mind set. It is a thinking that says I know better than anyone else what is good for them as individuals and what is good for us as a society. It treats adults as children who need to be protected. It views most people as being too simple (and yes idiotic) to be given all the information that is relevant to them. Adults are thus unable to make informed decisions and choices regarding themselves and their families. The irony is that the people who seek to control information are too often blindsided by events. They think that they have all the relevant information that is required and then reality rudely interrupts and graphically demonstrates the flaws in their thinking. In the end, we all suffer.

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Controlling Information

Information is and always has been key to acquiring and holding power. That is why controlling the spread and type of information has been a major priority of all governments down the ages. Giving people access to information has always empowered them while reducing the power of the ruling classes. As new communications technologies came onto the scene, they were gradually subsumed into existing power structures. At first this was done in an obvious manner but over time governments learned to control them behind the scenes. The trick was to convince people that the communication media they relied on was impartial while in actual fact it largely toed the government line.

Take the BBC. Is it impartial? Most people would not hesitate to say yes. But examine it more carefully and it typically acts as an extension of the UK government but never in an obvious manner. News that the government wants spread will receive widespread publicity while events that the government wants de-emphasized will be largely ignored. For example, why is there extensive coverage of Libya which has a ruthless dictator against whom the population are in revolt but we never hear about the protests that have started on a small scale within Saudi Arabia which has a largely self serving ruling tribe? Why is little coverage of the fact that Saudi troops are in Bahrain in an attempt to prevent a populist rebellion that happens to be largely driven by the Shia community?

Governments are not the only ones seeking to influence and control information. Large corporations and rich individuals also seek to do so. Their motivations are more commercial. Corporations seek a constant stream of concessions which are often against the economic interests of the general population. One way of securing these is to highlight the (alleged) benefits that corporations bring to communities while hiding the costs. Thus Walmart will emphasize the jobs that a new store will bring to a community while hiding the medical cost to the community because they pay their workers minimum wages and do not provide medical coverage. Rich individuals often use loopholes within the law to avoid taxes. They control and manipulate information (often indirectly) to the general public in order to avoid possible backlashes.

Military and intelligence services are usually among the most enthusiastic controllers of information. A lot of crimes can be hidden in the name of national security. The best part of this is that whenever national security is invoked, the notion that the country is in danger can be implanted in the minds of the citizens and that immediately becomes an emotive issue.

So information is controlled for a variety of reasons by a variety of forces. Most of these reasons are specious. The whole purpose of controlling information is to keep the general population in a state of ignorance regarding the true state of affairs in any issue. In democratic societies where covert control is not possible, the aim is to provide a superficial and distorted understanding of critical issues whereas autocratic societies can suppress any and all information.

The Purpose of a Nation State - I

Nation states have been powerful actors on the world stage for almost 500 years now. The nation state gave a political continuity along with a sense of belonging to a particular geographic area. These two combined factors unleashed energies that overwhelmed older style countries whose identities were linked largely to their ruling class.

Nation states developed gradually and fitfully in response to a need to remain on top of constantly shifting alliances in Europe. The initial impetus was almost certainly a desire by the ruling class to triumph over their adversaries and this particular solution was eventually the winning one. The state tried to monopolize the use of force within its boundaries. At the same time, it ensured that internal barriers to trade were dismantled thereby creating a unified national market. While these factors and others like them were linked to a basic desire for greater control, they ended up ensuring a political stability and continuity for the state. This meant that the people living in the geographic boundaries of a state started identifying closely with it thereby eventually ensuring that their desires were at least listened to by a previously aloof ruling class. These conditions also made industrialization possible. What was so unique about Britain that the process of industrialization started there? The answer can be found in the far greater political stability and continuity that the island state had.

Nation state also have a dark side. The very forces that unleashed the energies of industrialization also made possible increasingly powerful weapons of destruction. These weapons first made the subjugation of other parts of the world and then they were turned on the advanced states themselves twice. These wars were also accompanied by severe xenophobic reactions among the population. Thus Japanese Americans were interred in concentration camps after Pearl Harbor simply because of their racial origin. There was no protest among the general population despite the fact that vast majority of the people interred had been living in the US for several generations and identified themselves as Americans and not Japanese. The same xenophobia was exploited by the Nazis to keep the general population quiet while they went about the task of implementing their final solution against the Jews. The same xenophobia is at the root of the Hindu-Muslim riots that regularly strike several parts of India.

Today however a question needs to be asked: what is the purpose of the nation state now? Is it still a vital force on the world stage or has it become an anachronism that is hampering our political and social development as individuals, as groups and as a species.

Coping With Disaster

A disaster like an earthquake or a tsunami rips apart the bonds of civilization temporarily. The networks that normally operate and assist us in our daily lives stop working and people are left to their own devices. Life stops operating normally. What happens then? Do people turn on each other in a desperate bid for survival at any cost? What actually happens in the immediate aftermath of disaster is revealing. In case after case, the people in the affected area have turned to each other for help. Perfect strangers have done their best to aid their fellow humans. In the most trying of circumstances, networks are formed as people help not only themselves but also perfect strangers. In this fashion, humans show an innate empathy that is lacking in all other creatures. Even if the larger society fails to respond with aid in a timely fashion, the affected people rarely turn on each other unless instigated to do so in some fashion. This is a key point. We have an ability to empathize with others including perfect strangers. This empathy needs to be over ridden in some fashion before there can be descent into chaos.

How the broader society responds to a disaster depends on how egalitarian it is. Highly unequal societies will respond slowly no matter how rich they may be. Specifically they will respond in a piece meal fashion. The richer segments of society will be rescued fast while the less well off will be left largely to their own devices for a period of time. We saw this in action when Hurricane Katrina struck. The poor people who were stranded were left to their own devices while the state secured areas of concern to the well off. This occurred in the richest society in the world. Another problem in unequal societies is that there will always be people trying to take advantage of distress. Such people will try their best to over ride the empathy I talked of above since their interests are best served in chaotic conditions. More equal societies will respond in a speedy fashion to all the citizens in distress regardless of their economic status. People who try to take advantage of distress (and there are always some in any society) tend to get marginalized and rendered essentially harmless fairly quickly.

We are not brutes who are only kept in check by the controls imposed by civilization. This has always been the excuse of despots and would be despots down the ages. If people can be convinced that they are innately brutal, then strong controls can be imposed in the name of order. But events have shown again and again that when the need arises, humans reach out to help each other irrespective of relations. In this respect, an innate humanity wins out.

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Society's Priorities - II

In one sense, the priorities of a society are a sum of our priorities as individuals living in that society. What we consider to be important as individuals gets aggregated and eventually translates into what we value as a society. In a capitalist society, the primary mode of this expression is via the marketplace - whether the marketplace is that of goods or of ideas.

The picture however is not as simple as this. Our individual priorities do not arise in a vacuum. They have always been influenced by our families and peers. The rise of mass media and new forms of communication have enabled external interests to also influence our individual priorities. Psychological tactics (of which marketing is an important part) are major tools that are used to influence us as individuals. In many cases, this is done for purely commercial purposes. Sometimes however, this is done to influence society in a particular direction. Even when done for purely commercial purposes, the result is often that society turns in a direction that perhaps is not conducive to its future.

Why is it that top actors are paid so highly while top teachers are paid a pittance? Is the work of actors really that much more important? Why are celebrities followed avidly while firefighters are ignored? Are the former really so vital to the proper functioning of our society? Why are bankers paid so much more than their peers in other industrial sectors to the extent that people with PhDs in Physics and Maths are working in the financial sector? Are bankers really that much more intelligent, harder working and more productive? Why do we have the phenomenon of celebrity CEOs? Why do we elevate and celebrate people who are essentially bureaucrats? Why are technicians valued more than artists or philosophers?

All of these show what we truly value as a society. As individuals, we will gravitate towards areas that our society values more highly. So we have the phenomenon of young people trying to become actors while teaching positions (or firefighting or police) lie vacant. We also see bankers awarding themselves huge bonuses shortly after causing a major economic collapse while police, firefighting and public health services are scaled back or shut down for a lack of money. Whatever rhetoric we may employ, there are areas of our society that we simply do not consider to be important even though objectively viewed they are necessary for the future health of our society.

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Society's Priorities

A free market economy is a grand social experiment in societal priorities. The products and services we purchase, the types of jobs that are rewarded and the types that are not rewarded, the level of trust in personal and business interactions are all indications of the priorities that we have as a society. Our actions show what we value and what we don't. Rhetoric is cheap. It is easy to say anything specially if one feels that the words spoken will not come back to haunt them. Actions are what count.

Take education. Something that is vital for society's future prosperity. Without an educated workforce, many of the techniques and processes that are routinely discussed in the business community would simply not be possible. Most R&D in the public and private sector depends on the continuous infusion of young researchers who bring in a fresh perspective on old problems. So given that education is so important, teaching should be among the most highly paid of professions. The fact that it isn't specially at the primary and secondary levels says that despite our rhetoric, as a society, education is actually not considered very important.

Finance on the other hand is seemingly vital to an economy's health and success. The work that financial managers do is far more important to society than all other sectors of the economy despite the fact that finance is in essence a service industry which needs other sectors in order to exist. That is why the financial sector routinely hands out multi-million dollar packages thereby attracting the best talent and starving other sectors of the same.

Given our spending patterns, it seems that as a society, we care more about consuming in the present than preserving and adding for the future. As a group, our priorities are geared more towards enjoyment of the present despite the warnings that we have been given in the shape of various economic crises that have arisen from time to time.

End of Times

People have long had a strong fascination with the end of times meme. The imminent destruction of the world, typically in a fiery manner, has been a staple of predictions across cultures. While most people have focused on the mechanics of the end of times, the more interesting question is why is there such fascination with such gloomy predictions? Instead of asking how the world will end, it is perhaps more pertinent to explore why people find the end of the world so fascinating.

Since the start of agriculture, humans have had a strong interest in trying to predict the future. There are excellent reasons for doing so. If you are a farmer planning to plant next year's crop, then you want to know whether the rainfalls will come on time or whether the river will flood as it should. You want some predictability in an inherently unpredictable world in order to be able to plan ahead with some degree of confidence. These and other similar reasons were probably the origin of most oracles and seers. Later on as civilization developed and people started congregating in towns and then cities, the importance of future predictions increased. Rulers would want to know what kind of surplus would be generated for use. What the result of battles with the enemy will be like. Will the people be happy or at the very least content. The ruled would want to be able to plan out their lives with some degree of precision. Over time, these arts started becoming more formalized and today we have astrologers who claim to be able to predict personal and national futures.

Along the way, another interesting development took place in the art of predictions. Regular claims of the end times started appearing with increasing frequency. These claims typically increase in frequency during times of national stress. Thus changes in dynasties were usually accompanied by such predictions. They also tend to increase in frequency during significant calendar years. When a millennium change occurs, such predictions surface with greater rapidity. Sometimes they occur due to religious reasons. For example, the early Christians were convinced of the imminent arrival of Jesus in their lifetimes. When the second millennium started, again they were convinced that Jesus was about to come. In recent times, there have been two main drivers of the end time meme. One was the change of the millennium in both the Christian and the Islamic calendars. The other was the Mayan Long Count calendar. The latter is the most accurate calendar devised by humans until the modern era. Its accuracy rivals that of the modern calendar that we use today. This calendar can be used to project dates both backwards and forwards literally thousands of years without any loss of accuracy. Yet the Maya ended their calendar at a date that corresponds to the winter solstice, 2012. Nobody knows why. This mystery has set the stage for a large degree of speculation regarding the significance of this end date.

These two strands taken together have created a buzz that has grown over time as the calendar moves forward into 2012. A variety of predictions and speculation float around the internet. Some predict the coming Age of Aquarius which will bring peace and prosperity while others predict death and destruction on a massive scale from which only a few will be saved. On the face of it, this obsession with the end times is strange. The standard of living that a large number of people enjoy would have been unimaginable to even the richest person just a few generations ago. Over time, more and more people have attained this standard. A large number enjoy amenities that their parents could only dream about. The pace of technological advance has  meant that people can now live and work anywhere in the world and not be cut off from their family members left behind. There has been an increase in the variety and quality of food available. The average age of individuals has steadily increased over the last 100 years and shows no sign of slowing down. The average intelligence of the world's population has been increasing over time as a result of better nutrition and greater security.

With all of these positives, why are people attracted towards end world scenarios? Could it be related to the rapid pace of change in society that has occurred in recent times? We are constantly and increasingly rapidly being bombarded with new technologies and ideas that constantly change the way we behave and think. The old certainties of yesterday are gone. They have not been replaced with new ones. In their place, we are left groping in the dark trying to make sense of the new world around us. The older we get, the faster the changes arrive and the more problem we have in adjusting to new realities. Perhaps the attraction of the end time predictions is that they have an aura of certainty around them.

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Managing Religion

Religion is a powerful organizing force in the world despite massive efforts to belittle its importance and utility. This has been a problem for most governments since religious passions are difficult to predict and control. Authorities interfere with religion at their own peril. We have many examples in history where religion inspired wars and revolutions. The events of 1857 in India, the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, the Mormon migration of 1847 and the many pogroms in Europe throughout the Middle Ages were inspired to a lesser or greater extent by religious passions. As a result, throughout history, authorities in charge have either tried to clamp down on religion usually unsuccessfully or they have tried to co-opt it and make it subservient to the state.

Demagogues and people seeking an issue they can champion find it very easy to raise the cry "[xyz religion] is in danger!" This almost invariably causes large numbers of people to come out in support of their religion. Once a large enough group assembles, mob behavior quickly takes over. The problem for demagogues and society in general is that once this happens, it is almost impossible to control events. Religious passions are easy to ignite but difficult to tamp down. In the heat of the moment, individuals will engage in actions that they would under normal circumstances never consider doing. What such people do not stop to consider this that the religion whose name they have come out to defend is actually being manipulated to serve nefarious interests. This is one aspect of managing religion.

Because of the relative ease with which religious passions can be inspired, rulers have always had a strong interest in making it subservient to the perceived needs of the state. A basic motivation is to prevent religiously inspired riots and insurrections and preserve law and order or at the very least control. A deeper motivation is that religion can be used to make people quiescent. No matter how repressive the regime or social order, religion can be used as a tool to make people quietly accept the existing order. For this purpose, the state often co-opts religious authorities essentially by making them part of the existing establishment so that they have a strong interest in maintaining the existing order. This is another aspect of managing religion.

Sometimes religion is used to stratify societies. Hinduism has used this to great effect. It has divided its adherents into castes and sub-castes. If you are born into a particular caste, you cannot aspire to things and activities reserved for other castes. Castes themselves have a strong hierarchy so that some are superior than others. The beauty of this system is that it is self perpetuating and virtually immune to pressure from within. How can someone challenge the divine order? Doing so means damnation of the soul. In this way, religion is used to perpetuate a class system. This is yet another aspect of managing religion.

In modern times and specially in advanced economies, traditional religion is belittled and mocked for its supposed superstition and backwardness. The irony is that the people who do so have in essence elevated science to the status of religion. This is still another aspect of managing religion.

The pawns in all of this are people's belief systems. Many politicians, religious leaders, dictators, demagogues or people seeking to make themselves famous use religion as a tool to advance their personal, narrow interests. Often the harm that they cause is enormous. All the blame for this harm is laid on the door of the religion concerned when in actual fact, the real blame lies elsewhere.

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The Lure of Power

Exactly what is the lure of power? Why do despots fiercely cling to power no matter what the consequences may be for their country? Is it because they believe themselves to be indispensable? Do they view themselves as father figures guiding their child like population to safety?

One possible reason can be money. Almost every single dictator has been massively corrupt looting millions if not billions from their countries over the course of their rule. Frequently this looting is accompanied by a deliberate breakdown of law and order and an undermining of any countervailing institutions. Building these is a pre-requisite of good governance but they would also act as a check on the looting that dictators love to indulge in.

However, while this is a major component, it cannot be the sole one. If that were the case, dictators would tend to flee when the population rises in revolt. Instead they cling on desperately and willingly push their countries into civil war like Gaddafi has done in Libya. In some cases, the despots may not be personally corrupt but they will still refuse to share power. Bahrain is currently following this route. So why try to hang on to power once the population is out on the streets and has made it clear that you are not wanted?

Incidentally power also seems to have major health benefits. The more absolute the power, the greater the apparent health benefits. Take a look at the despots sprinkled far too liberally around the world. Each one of them is a picture of robust health as long as they are power. However, most of them fall ill and die shortly after losing that power. Dictator after dictator has been the picture of robust health as long as they have control only to fall into illness and dying fairly quickly after being kicked out.

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Exploitation and Technology

Modern society has a very large element of exploitation in it. This occurs at different levels and is manifested in different ways. All of us play a role in it. We are at the same time exploiters and the exploited. Over time, the level and sophistication of the exploitation has increased at an ever rapid pace. This increase has largely been driven by technology. In this sense, technology is an enabler and at the same time an enslaver.

One of the primary requirements for exploitation is information. In order to exploit people and situations, we need access to the appropriate information. This does not mean that exploitation will not occur in the absence of information. It will. It will merely be done at a very crude level. Every transaction and interaction has a physical component and an informational component. It is the informational component that is vital for exploitation to take place.

While we are surrounded by an invisible web of information, for most of history, it was very difficult to actually capture and use it in any meaningful fashion. The cost and difficulty of doing so was simply too large. Technology has always been used to try and capture this information. The development of writing and the increasing sophistication of writing materials were amongst the first steps in this regard. However, the pace of technological change in the past was simply too low to allow for widespread gathering of the necessary information. The industrial revolution changed that. The technological changes it engendered in many different fields increasingly enabled larger and larger quanta of information to be efficiently and ever cheaply gathered. This enabled exploitation on a previously unimaginable scale. The forced labor of Stalinist Russia was only possible by the technological advances made possible with the Industrial Revolution.

Today, with several different technologies converging, the amount of data that is captured on a daily basis by a wide variety of organizations is simply astonishing. The limiting factor right now is processing this information into usable knowledge in a reasonable time and at a reasonable cost and there is a large amount of serious research that is looking into this aspect. The advances made therein have allowed people to be exploited with ever greater efficiency and ruthlessness. At the same time, we have mostly been convinced that we are not being exploited at all.

A prime example of this is modern globalization. At the start of this process, blue collar jobs got outsourced. Middle class fears were allayed by the claim that advanced economies can concentrate on more value added, knowledge intensive work while the affected workers were convinced that job losses were their own fault. Again, technology was a prime enabler for the process by lowering transportation and communication costs to a level where management of far flung factories became possible in almost real time. Also from this time on the blue collar jobs that remained had this particular sword hanging over their heads. But technological forces also enabled the exploitation of middle class jobs. The knowledge jobs that were supposed to be the domain of the advanced economies can just as easily (and more cheaply) done by developing economies because no one has a lock of acquiring knowledge. This enabled middle class workers to be exploited as well by playing on fears of losing jobs.

Another great enabler and exploiter has been the Internet. This has allowed for new kinds of goods and services which have become integral parts of our professional and private lives. People can express themselves in ways that were simply not possible before. The rise of bloggers is an excellent example of this. Before the Net, the publishing houses acted as gatekeepers. They decided who got published and who did not. Here printing technology had liberated by lowering the cost of a book but enabled a group (publishers) to exploit another one (authors). The Internet enabled a larger group of people to bypass the gatekeepers and get themselves published at a nominal cost. Blogging has become a powerful and empowering phenomenon. At the same time, bloggers have been arrested and otherwise harassed for writing about things that powerful interests do not want to be generally aired: the most prominent example of this being Wikileaks. Again technology broke one form of exploitation and acted as a liberating force. At the same time, it made possible a different form of exploitation.

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