Eternal Sunshine of an Ignorant Mind

I feel cold.
My youth has been exposed, the quilt
of pretence trivialized my fantasies.

My legs feel numb, as I
lie in perennial wretchedness,
aching for consequence on a morose bed
of cotton and wool.

My semblance fails to convince what
should be not, as a gust chills my joints,
and my youth begins to age
towards premature awareness.

My limbs freeze, I am unable
to move, I lie in a shortened demesne
of protection, eternally.

And I feel cold.

-Rahul Dash

One of the greatest poets of all time, John Milton was, in his own words, a late developer. The following is a poem that he wrote to express his disappointment and his worry:

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
That I to manhood am arriv'd so near;
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure ev'n
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heav'n
All is, if I have grace to use it so
As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.

I usually analyze and tell how good (and where) a poem is. But I will leave you with this. This sonnet will mean different things to different people. But if it doesn't mean anything to you, you must be old.

And that would be such a shame.

-Rahul Dash

The brilliant mathematician Alan Turing searched for the possibility that human beings are actually machines. It is believed by some, including me, that this wishful (maybe) thinking was to then believe that as machines, we are capable of logical deduction in all situations. This would have been quite useful to Turing, who was homosexual in an age where logical deduction wasn't the basis of defining rationality ,homosexuality was illegal and for which, Turing was arrested and chemically castrated, leading to hyper-emotional problems that eventually led to his death.

Another brilliant logician, Kurt Godel (proponent of the Incompleteness Theorem, which essentially states that logical systems cannot self satisfy themseleves, there has to be an extrenal rule that is to be assumed in order to validate a logical system completely) discarded the idea that human beings are machines. In fact, human beings are capable of that one leap which may act as the necessary externality required to prove a logic system: intution. And although Godel could never prove the existence of intution on paper, he was sure of its existence.

I have been reading a lot of the work of J.M.Coetzee, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 for being someone "who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider." In a majority of Coetzee's works, one can find the social or personal system (often based on logical deductions) to appear impossible to understand, impossible to predict and extremely difficult to accept. However, with an extrenal factor or involvement, there comes to the surface a logical system which was hitherto hidden under the wraps of a Godel based handicap.

Which brings me to a very interesting question. Each person, if he views his life from his own point of view, finds a particular sequence lacking any particular deduction. Many a times, we hear about people craving logic in their lives. In fact all of us crave for logic. For a completeness to our being. A purpose. A destination. Or just plain sense of our being here. If we believe Godel and others, we cannot understand the rule guiding our life, the logic involved as we are nothing but a mere system. Is it for this purpose that we invoke God? As an external theorem, an external truth that validates the system that is our life? And did this God arise out of a need to satisfy our intution?

-Rahul Dash
(rahuldash@gmail.com)

P.S. It needs to be mentioned that the incompleteness theorem I have stated above is not the rigorous version, nor is the Turing's idea described. I have mentioned only so much since I was lazy to describe the details and I believe that the essence of this blogpost is not to be an introductory tutorial. However, in case anyone is interested in these ideas, send me an email at the abovementioned id.

I have seen Pulp Fiction 15 times.

I have seen Reservoir Dogs 8 times.

I have seen Kill Bill...

Ok. You get the point.

I am as big a Tarantino buff as you would find anywhere on this planet. So naturally when I went to see Inglourious Basterds on friday night, I (and I would like to think the people who read my blog) thought that a review was inevitable.

I saw the movie. I liked it. Surely not Tarantino's best. Though I would rate it above Jackie brown, Death Proof and Kill Bill 2. A lot of style. A lot of spunk. Expected.

Saturday night, instead of writing the review for Inglourious Basterds, I decided to tag along 3 friends and go watch Wake up Sid. My friends were apprehensive. And although I pretended to be sure of the movie being good, I too was apprehensive.

And then it came.
The realization.

That a good movie need not come from Quentin Tarantino starring Brad Pitt. It may as well come from Ayan Mukerjee starring Ranbir Kapoor.

Wake Up Sid is that. A good movie. Pure joy.

From the first till the last scene, the movie doesn't try and prove anything to you. It does not try to prove a particular philosophy. Neither does it try and make you like a particular style. It is neither heavy on the mind nor is it heavy on the eyes. I won't go into the details. Not because I don't want to. But simply because I can't. There are just so many details. The little things that make or break a relationship are the same that make or break a movie. And you can't list those things, can you?

While Tarantino on one hand grabs you by the collar and screams at you, "Look! Look at how I have done this scene! I am fucking brilliant!", Wake Up Sid tells you "Oh, are you watching this shit? I really do not give a fuck."

And it is there that it makes a connection.

I recommend this movie to all of you who take life too seriously as well as those who take it too lightly. I recommend it to all those who live by rules as well as those who hate them. You will come out of the theater with a smile on your face.

And in this pretentious world where everyone constantly behaves as if he/she has an umbrella up his/her ass, that isn't such a bad thing.

-Rahul Dash

Chris Anderson is the curator of the TED Conference. Chris Anderson has also written a bestselling book, called The Long Tail.

They are two separate men. Let us call them CA1 and CA2.

It is quite ironic that the opening example from CA2's fantastic article that appeared in Wired magazine begins with an example of a certain book that found new life because of similarities in title (and content) with another one. In Anderson's own words:

In 1988, a British mountain climber named Joe Simpson wrote a book called Touching the Void, a harrowing account of near death in the Peruvian Andes. It got good reviews but, only a modest success, it was soon forgotten. Then, a decade later, a strange thing happened. Jon Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air, another book about a mountain-climbing tragedy, which became a publishing sensation. Suddenly Touching the Void started to sell again.

Chris Anderson published his wonderful book, The Long Tail, a couple of years back. And despite it being a blockbuster idea back then, the book has lost relevance with today's youth. The 20 year olds today who were too young to read anything conclusive a couple of years back. Not surprising, in an internet age where the most popular song is a different one every week, in every country, two years is too long a time for any idea to survive. Unless it is reinvented.

Let us come to CA1. Ever since it was announced that TED would be organizing a conference in India in Nov 2009, the interest in the brand has grown tremendously. A large number of students I know started viewing TED lectures (as they are called) because of the recent local association. The name Chris Anderson cropped up frequently, but the person that people searched for was CA1.

Nevertheless, a google search puts both of these men on the front page. And both have a wiki-page. Thus CA2 was rediscovered, at least amongst the people I know. And so was his idea of the Long Tail. Now you realize why I call the opening lines from his article ironic.

The main contention of The Long Tail is that the time to offer only a select number of items on the basis of perceived profits to the perceived market is over. In today's incredibly large world with enormous diversity, it is impossible to find a handful of products that may satisfy the entire market. Or worse, even identify the entire possible market.

The world is increasingly becoming one where the demand for a particular kind of commodity is very limited. People have choice. A huge amount of choice. Let us take an example.

Take a group of 1000 people. Give them 10 different types of ice-cream, with the only changing element being the amount of almond topping. Now ask people to mention the ice-cream they like the most. Plot the results on a graph. You would like to believe it is a bell curve. Think again.

I did the experiment with 50 people in my own neigbourhood (do not ask me who sponsored the ice-cream) and the curve was of a shape that merits no name. But the results merit attention. There were 4 distinct groups. Even in a sample space as small as 50! And that too when I changed only the almond toppings! People divided themselves into 4 specific groups on the graph. And what's more, they were highly sensitive once they alligned themselves into groups. In other words, consider the 2nd group. If I had given them an ice-cream that had twice the amount of almonds as is defined by the group before these people alligned themselves in the group, they would have had no problem. However, once they realized that they are in a sizable group and they like a particular flavour, a major change from that flavour would definitely lead them to switch shops (if I ran an ice-cream shop). However, there was one group, namely the first, which was fixed upon what it wanted: No almonds for health reasons. This group was already present, even before the experiment was conducted. However, this miniscule experiment created three new groups.

Imagine, in today's internet age, where reading material, videos, music even pornography is available in enormous varieties, how many groups must there exist? Millions of them, on a global scale. Many groups are aware of their existence. Many others arent. Why do some groups realize that they exist and why are the others unaware?

A group's existence depends on a)the product and possible versions of it b)people that can possibly form the group.

Consider for example the porn industry. Even the most disgusting and vile forms of pornography (disgusting according to me) have thousands of websites devoted to them. I have had countless number fo people exclaim, "Yuck! Who watches that?" The answer is, a lot of people. Pornography is the most dominant internet product, atleast amongst the youth. And because people watch porn privately, they can watch anything...at least once. The ability to experiment with porn is very very high. It is precisely because of this experimentation that different people realize that they actually like different types of porn movies. And the porn industry complies by setting up websites for each type of porn movie.

Compare this with a more traditional form of product like music. How many new bands have you come across online? How many websites dedicated to different genres of music? Why do you think the number is that low? It is because people gain social acceptance based on the kind of music they listen to. Friends know of the music you listen to and you make a lot of attempt to try and like the music that most of your peers think of as good. Thus the level of experimentation is very low. consequently, many niche groups that could have been formed aren't formed at all. And hence, there isn't a niche market based supply. Well, at least not in India.

Chris Anderson's Long Tail, Seth Godin's Purple Cow, Blue Ocean strategy and Taleb's Black Swan are all catchy phrases that say that there are a lot of such groups out there that none of the marketing gurus or management companies exploit. Heck, these groups aren't even aware of their own existence. That there is a large, untapped market...if only people would exercise more choice and less conformity. And it is the job of product sellers to make people experiment in large numbers.

Because no matter what you sell. The world is so big and so diverse that you would always find a buyer. The point is to make a lot of people aware of and experiment with it.

I have written on similar topics here.

-Rahul Dash
If you are intrested in such ideas, write to me: rahuldash@gmail.com

Seth Godin, one of the world's most innovative marketing gurus, coined the term "The Purple Cow" to describe anything that is remarkable. In his own words,

Cows, after you’ve seen them for a while, are boring. They may be perfect cows, attractive cows, cows with great personalities, cows lit by beautiful light, but they’re still boring. A Purple Cow, though. Now that would be interesting. (For a while.)

The essence of the Purple Cow is that it must be remarkable. In fact, if “remarkable” started with a P, I could probably dispense with the cow subterfuge, but what can you do? This book is about the why, the what, and the how of remarkable. - From Godin's book- The Purple Cow

I have been following Godin's work and his blog for quite some time and very few principles have had a more profound impact on my style of thinking about problems and innovation than the principle of being "remarkable" or the "Purple Cow" principle.

In fact, the art of being "remarkable" does not stop being important when you step out of the marketing sphere. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a really smart hedge fund manager, talks about Black Swans, or in less colourful terms, statistical outliers. These are events that constitute the rare end of any frequency curve. For example, in a year of bull market, a one day 500 pts downfall of the Sensex might be termed as a Black Swan. Taleb's hedge fund acts on these rare events, which, although rare in nature, have a possibility of incredibly huge one time gains.

A Black Swan is nature's ways of creating a Purple Cow. You do not expect it and you do not expect people to expect it and so on. But the consequences of its existence are enormous.

At the heart of Black Swan and Purple Cow is the concept of small trends. A trend that lasts for a small period of time and is visible to an astute oberver, however, which causes a massive opportunity. The trend maybe very sector specific, but the solutions to take advantage of those opportunitites may lead to large scale innovations in the way we think about and solve problems.

The world is full of such trends that emerge (only for a while) and cause large scale changes. And these trends need not be macro. I truly believe that the most path-breaking trends in the world today are, as Mark Penn calls them, "Microtrends".

Consider for example, the rise of microfinance. And I do not mean the traditional, purely as a form of social change, non-profit model. That wasn't sustainable. I mean the for profit version of it. The version that has seen the total number of clients worldwide increase to about 100 million and the amount fo micro-loans outstanding increase to about 40 billion. A wonderful offshoot of rural microfinance is urban microfinance. Day loans, to be precise. Having worked for a firm to study and help raise private equity for an urban microcredit organization, I could see the small trends that, when analyzed, provide some of the greatest clues as to what are the most pressing issues that should be tackled by urban microcredit. I can't give much details, because the project I was working on still isn't complete.

However, the underlying microtrend, call it a Black Swan, was the obervation that, in vertain areas, the grades of certain students belonging to low income families were increasing. My analysis showed that these students belonged predominantly to families in a particular slum. The slum had received training sessions from a certain NGO on the benefits of education, in a vocational way. The parents of those children started paying more attention to the child's exams. They ditched work and stayed back during their children's exams, not to help him/her study (the pranets were mostly illiterate) but to help them get up in the morning and prepare tea, food for them. The school that these children attended had an important unit test right after Diwali, which meant that these parents took consistent leaves during the Diwali season. These parents mainly included maidservants. The frequent leaves ensured that their 'masters' had no help at home to prepare sweets and ther food items during the Diwali season. Thus there was a sudden increase in the already increased demand for eatables at small sweet shops, leading to a capital crunch. Thus arose the need for urban microcredit, in that small area, for a short period of time. And credit, once it engulfs an area an an imagination, engulfs it completely.

In hindsight, all logic seems simple. All events seem either obvious or just freakish. The Black Swans seem either as abberations or common occurences in a different form. However, the art of trendspotting, to recognize an oncoming black swan and set up a purple cow before it loses significance, is rare.

-Rahul Dash
If you are interested in these ideas, write to me: rahuldash@gmail.com

I haven't read Jaswant Singh's book yet. I will definitely read it and post my views in some time. However, a much larger question that troubles me is this:

What is the difference between Ayatollah Khomeini declaring a fatwa in the name of Salman Rushdie after the much controversial Satanic Verses and the BJP expelling Jaswant Singh for praising (and pointing out the flaws) of a man who, unlike Hitler, is hated and loved by an equal number of people? And if there is no difference, why is Iran described as a theocratic rule without reason and India considered a champion of democratic beliefs?

-Rahul Dash (rahuldash@gmail.com)