Finally, we catch up with France! In technology?

Four summers ago, I was in the south of France for a week, thanks to the daughter bugging me to go with them.  "I am sure you will have a good time" she said.

I did.

Every morning, after having an espresso and a chocolate croissant, I was off for a walk in the quiet and scenic landscape of the Dordogne Valley just as the sun was barely beginning to light up that part of the world.

Morning at Carennac

I think it was a Sunday, which is why there was nobody at the gas station when we drove up to fill gas.  But, people were filling at the self-serve pumps.  We got to one.  There was no place to swipe the credit card.  The pump accepted only credit cards with embedded chips--the technology that American credit card issuers had resisted for the longest time because, well, they could.

We didn't have one of those cards.  It seemed like we were stuck.

A guy, about in his late twenties, was filling up at the adjacent pump.

"I am going to ask him whether he can pay for us on his card and I will pay him the cash" J whispered as she walked towards him.

I thought about the French stereotypes.  Won't speak in English even when they know the language. Will not want to help an American who can't speak French.  Will look down upon us.

"Oui, oui" I heard him say.  And then in English too, for a good measure, "no problems."

Stereotypes are horrendous caricatures.

After all those years, a couple of months ago, I got in the mail credit cards with chips in them.  Finally!  But, it has a magnetic stripe as well. So, I have been swiping the card everywhere as before.

A few days back, I was in the grocery store when I noticed that the machine had an option for the chip technology too.  Like a kid excited about the new toy, I eagerly placed it in that designated slot.  I wondered how the new technology will respond at the register.

"It doesn't work" the clerk said.

She smiled, and added, "I bet the day Whole Foods comes to town, they will update all these machines in a hurry.  Because Whole Foods will have it and we will have to keep up with the competition."

All those hardcore left of center people conveniently forget how the conveniences of the lives that we lead pretty much resulted from competition in the marketplace.  Everybody seems to be trying the hardest to build that metaphorical better mousetrap so that they can get rich--and, in the process, the rest of us have better television, smartphones, planes, cars, ... Without that competition to build a better mousetrap, well, the local grocery store has no incentive to upgrade their point-of-sale machines, right?

Of course, we could always argue whether we really need better television, smartphones, planes, cars, etc., when, for instance, there are hundreds of millions who are trapped in acute poverty, or when millions suffer from illnesses like malaria, or when India's millions have no place to shit but in the open. But, all those are different discussions from this one which is about competition delivering miracles in the form of various conveniences and gadgets, don't you think?

As far as I am concerned, my problem is this: I now have credit cards that will work in France, but don't have money to get there! It is tempting to charge the card and enjoy, if it were not for the unfortunate reality that people are not competing to pay my bills ;)

Ramadan slows us down ... to think, again, about "why this competition?"

Taking the back road is always wonderfully scenic in this part of the world.  A writer's paradise. Well, a paradise for this wannabe writer too ;)

But, there are reasons why a back road, with only one lane in each direction, might not have been taken even by Robert Frost. The sight of dead deer is not for the faint of the heart.   Traffic, however feeble a trickle that might be, can come to a stop if there is any mishap on the road. Or, even when the traffic moves, it can be at a snail's pace because of farm vehicles, like what happened the other day.

I was about six miles away from the destination when the smooth drive was interrupted by brake lights ahead. And then we crawled at between fifteen and twenty miles per hour.  Five miles more and my mind worked out the math of the additional time this stretch would take because of the differential of forty miles an hour. (We will find out how good you are at math.)  I tell ya, there is no shortage of materials to keep my mind occupied!

Some of us take life the way it unfolds, and then there are others.  The driver in the vehicle that was immediately behind me was one of those others.  He (yes, it was a male driver) made clear he wanted to pass me by edging the nose of the vehicle into the other lane and then pulling back because of oncoming traffic.  I wondered what he could possibly achieve by passing me when there were at least six other vehicles in between me and the farm vehicle in the lead.

And then, just like that he shot into the other lane and jumped back in immediately in front of me.  I hit the brakes. I grabbed my cellphone. And clicked.

It was a long line of vehicles behind me.  Nobody was going anywhere until the farm vehicle was off the road and, yet, the impatient driver couldn't be patient.

Thus it was on a hot summer day that I was, yet again, reminded of Rumi:

Inside the Great Mystery that is,
we don't really own anything.
What is this competition we feel then,
before we go, one at a time, through the same gate?

Perhaps the driver of that Suburban has never thought what Rumi wants us to reflect on.

If only all of us thought more about that competition in daily life at least during the scheduled calendar dates of a Christian's Sunday, or a Hindu's Ekadasi, or a Muslim's Ramadan.

Caption at the Source:
In this photo taken in Sarajevo on Tuesday, July 15, 2014
a restaurant waitress dressed in traditional clothes of Bosnian Muslims prepares food for iftar

Competition, altruism, and social darwinism, in biology and US politics

Slowly catching up with issues of the New Yorker that I had missed reading, thanks to the sabbatical--I had to wait until now to read the articles that are paywalled at the magazine's site. 

Jonah Lehrer's essay on the genetics of altruism is one of those inaccessible behind the paywall.  The essay is very much a story of the scientific method, as much as it is about altruism and selfishness.  From Charles Darwin, who regarded altruism "as a potentially fatal challenge to his theory of natural selection" to William Hamilton, in 1964, explaining that as a cost/benefit equation, rB > C, where "genes for altruism could evolve if the benefit (B) of an action exceeded the cost (C) to the individual once relatedness (r) was taken into account."  This was born the "inclusive fitness theory."

Lehrer writes that E.O. Wilson was the biggest champion of this neat little equation, though it was not an idea that was easy to sell.  But then, Wilson himself begins to question the validity of this equation--a classic example of the scientific method to forever question any explanatory framework, even if it is your own favorite one.  Wilson came up with a dramatically different framework about relatedness that it is "a consequence of eusociality, not the cause."

But, what about the evidence for this? In 2010, Wilson co-authors a paper in Nature that presents a lot more complicated mathematical model on the evolution of eusociality, which apparently has ignited one hell of a firestorm amongst biologists.  "Wilson is the only one who seems to be enjoying the controversy.  His appetite for scientific brawls seems, if anything, to be increasing with age." 

Wilson continues with an essay in The Daily Beast, on what drives humans to form tribes and then make wars of many types with other tribes. 

The drive to join is deeply ingrained, a result of a complicated evolution that has led our species to a condition that biologists call eusociality. “Eu-,” of course, is a prefix meaning pleasant or good: euphony is something that sounds wonderful; eugenics is the attempt to improve the gene pool. And the eusocial group contains multiple generations whose members perform altruistic acts, sometimes against their own personal interests, to benefit their group. Eusociality is an outgrowth of a new way of understanding evolution, which blends traditionally popular individual selection (based on individuals competing against each other) with group selection (based on competition among groups). Individual selection tends to favor selfish behavior. Group selection favors altruistic behavior and is responsible for the origin of the most advanced level of social behavior, that attained by ants, bees, termites—and humans.

He concludes with this:

Civilization appears to be the ultimate redeeming product of competition between groups. Because of it, we struggle on behalf of good and against evil, and reward generosity, compassion, and altruism while punishing or downplaying selfishness. But if group conflict created the best in us, it also created the deadliest. As humans, this is our greatest, and worst, genetic inheritance.

Now, compare such complex analyses of how humans behave, and how we might have evolved, with the President casually tossing out highly flammable rhetoric when criticizing the GOP budget plan:

 Reigniting his clash with Republicans over how to tame the debt and deficits, President Obama delivered a blistering attack on the House Republican budget Tuesday, calling it “thinly veiled social Darwinism” and a “prescription for decline.”

To some extent, this is a kind of war between two tribes, right?  And such a war is also an example of how our greatest genetic inheritance is also our worst inheritance :(

Robert Reich runs fast with the President's comments:

We are likely to hear a lot more about social Darwinism in the months ahead. It was the conservative creed during the late 19^th century – legitimizing a politics in which the lackeys of robber barons deposited sacks of money on legislators’ desks, and justifying an economy in which sweat shops were common, urban slums festered, and a significant portion of America was impoverished.

Seriously?  Come on; Social Darwinism?  Even if the President uses it as battle rhetoric, for Reich the academic to re-use that?

Professor Linda Hirshman's column is a lot more substantive than is Reich's.  I agree with her bottom line about the election: "Let the wild rumpus begin."

"Out-compete any other nation." Really?

President Obama talks about competition and international trade, which are Paul Krugman's forte.  What does Krugman have to say?  Ahem, the I wonder if the President will read this Krugman column:

Take the case of General Electric, whose chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, has just been appointed to head that renamed advisory board. I have nothing against either G.E. or Mr. Immelt. But with fewer than half its workers based in the United States and less than half its revenues coming from U.S. operations, G.E.’s fortunes have very little to do with U.S. prosperity.
By the way, some have praised Mr. Immelt’s appointment on the grounds that at least he represents a company that actually makes things, rather than being yet another financial wheeler-dealer. Sorry to burst this bubble, but these days G.E. derives more revenue from its financial operations than it does from manufacturing — indeed, GE Capital, which received a government guarantee for its debt, was a major beneficiary of the Wall Street bailout.

When Krugman writes like this with facts and logic, it is a sheer pleasure to read his columns, as against the rare ones where he gets a tad shrill.
Anyway, Krugman has more:

Mr. Obama himself may do all right: his approval rating is up, the economy is showing signs of life, and his chances of re-election look pretty good. But the ideology that brought economic disaster in 2008 is back on top — and seems likely to stay there until it brings disaster again. 

Doesn't sound all too good.

Indian students shunning America? :-(

Some time ago, I wrote in an opinion piece that America does not seem to have the shine that once attracted thousands of Indian students. I was, and am concerned about it, because more than anything these students going to other countries is our loss.

Guess what the latest report is? Yes, I have more to worry about! Here is an excerpt from the Chronicle:

The economic crisis in the United States has tarnished the American dream for many Indians, who are opting for university studies and career opportunities at home, the Reuters news agency reported. ....

The Educational Testing Service has reported that the number of Indian students taking the Graduate Record Examinations fell from 74,000 in 2007 to 55,000 in 2008. ....

Even students who have passed the examination are abandoning plans to study abroad due to lack of funds, said Rajiv Ganjoo, head of international education at Career Launcher, a test-preparation company in India. “It is a waiting game now,” Mr. Ganjoo said. “Students are looking at the recession, at how the colleges react to it and how the government reacts to it, before taking any steps,” he added.

“The brain drain has already begun to reverse,” said Mr. Wadhwa. “Now there are many magnets pulling the best talent. Before, the U.S. was where everyone wanted to go.”