Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Ever notice how people assume that people who did well till college are necessarily the smartest people around for the rest of their lives? Like look at how people talk about IIT’ians (I don’t refer to the IIT’ians who brag, rather I refer to the rest who talk about that guy’s IIT pedigree as a guaranteed sign of greatness in everything he does for all time)? Or the same thing, except replace “IIT’ian” with “IAS topper” in the previous line? Or “law school topper”? I mean, sure, all those guys worked very hard at a certain point of their life . But how do you extrapolate from the fact that they slogged when they were 17 or 22 (or whenever) that they’re necessarily the smartest guys around till they die? Do people seriously believe that our academic system teaches people skills that are relevant to real life or the workplace? If not, doesn’t it follow that those guys may not do well through the rest of their lives unless they learn new skills and adapt? And where does it say that those

You’d have to live in a cave to not know that MS Dhoni is popular. But that he was #10 in the most marketable sportspeople worldwide ? That’s beyond imagination. Think about it: the guy plays cricket, a game followed only in a handful of countries (IPL notwithstanding). The others on the list are from football, athletics, F1, tennis…the usual suspects. Coming from games with huge followings. Playing sports that are popular worldwide. And yet, a guy earning in rupees beat the Euro and dollar guys. Wow! Maybe India is shining. But if you think that it must be because of IPL or India winning the World Cup, then how come the cricketer so many Indians idolize, Sachin Tendulkar, is nowhere to be seen on this list? Even Yuvraj is ahead of Tendulkar! Just goes to show that being good isn’t the same as being marketable. Tendulkar’s like Facebook: popular but with no clear idea on how to translate that into money. And Dhoni’s like Apple: the brand everyone wants to have a piece of.

As the election results started rolling in on Friday, it was amusing to see the news channels provide “reasons” for the wins and losses, close margins and landslides. Why did Jayalalithaa win? 2G scam and corruption. Really? Since when did Jayalalithaa become the poster girl for the opposite of corruption? Or why did Mamata win? General misrule by the Left. Really? It took 20 years and multiple elections after liberalization to figure out that the Leftist approach was taking Bengal nowhere? Of course, this kind of insane reason providing doesn’t stop at the elections. We hear similar rubbish about why the Sensex fell or rose (the Euro crisis; the signs of an American recovery; RBI’s interest rate hikes). Isn’t it more likely that the market fluctuates because investors aren’t rational? With rational investors, we’d never have stock market bubbles and crashes, would we? Even religions/philosophies insist on providing a reason: why do some people suffer? Why did so many die during the ts

The Osama killing is very curious. I find two aspects of it that seem irreconcilable no matter what theory is advocated: 1) Osama being found so deep in Pakistan, so close to Islamabad, so close to an army town. 2) The “Why didn’t the dog bark?” question: since Pakistan was harbouring Osama, why didn’t they try and protect him? Or at least, to shoot down the Americans once the firefight started? No matter which theory you consider, they can’t seem to explain both of the above facts. Consider these theories: a) Pakistan sold Osama out: If they did that, surely they would have been smart enough to make sure Osama was found on the border. Which violates #1 above. b) Pakistan had no idea that the Americans were coming in: Even if the Americans entered undetected (either due to massive incompetence of the Pakistani army and/or stealth technology that evaded the radars), wouldn’t Pakistan have sent soldiers once the firefight had started in Abbottabad to see what was going on? After all, the

“The more refined and intellectual our needs become, the less they are capable of satiety.” Is that the reason why most religions advocate belief over proof and intellect? I mean, is their reasoning (I guess they don’t like that word, “reason” either because it is an output of some thought process) that if the needs of the intellect are insatiable, then surely pursuing them can never lead to a feeling of fulfilment? Or at least, that’s the attitude most religions seem to take. I think Arthur Schopenhauer noticed the same thing when he wrote, “All religions promise a reward ... for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.” But is the alternative that religions propose (abandon the intellect) a fulfilling option either? Can one truly feel happiness if one has to suppress a natural tendency: to think, to question, to analyze?

The development of probability theory has interesting origins: it’s all connected to gambling! Born in 1445, Luca Paccioli, a Franciscan monk, posed the problem that came to be called the puzzle of the points: A and B are playing a game of balla. The first person to win 6 rounds wins. But the game has to be stopped when A had won 5 rounds and B has won 3 rounds. How should the money be divided in such an uncompleted game? Finding a way to solve this problem had implications far beyond gambling. After all, this question involves factoring what may happen in the future. To put it differently, what are the chances that B catches up and overtakes A if the game continued? Gamblers were always interested in this kind of question: which numbers show up more often in a throw of the dice? What are the odds of a particular number showing up when two dice are involved instead of one? Like all smart people, the gamblers didn’t just do such analysis themselves. They even tried asking mathematicians