A Personal Appeal for Wikipedia

This is an appeal.

This post is not written equally for all my audiences. Sadly, you would have to be a high school or university student and preferably, a student of the social sciences, to sincerely empathise with me.

As a student, I am often beleaguered by essays and theses, and other written pieces that often require formal citation. In academia, given a growing erudition over the years, more and more stringent regulations are placed on the quality of these sources, and a keen understanding and sensitivity towards the reliability of a source, and the method of data processing and statistical analysis that the data in these sources have undergone.

Now I come to the main purpose of this entry: citing Wikipedia. I do understand the reservation regarding using Wikipedia as a source: it is not necessarily accurate, given the fact that it is open to editing by anyone. In scholarly writing of great consequence, where research may be based on your work, I absolutely agree that strong discretion be applied with regards to choice of sources. And I do accede that as a matter of setting a habit, academics should encourage students to look for more scholarly sources than Wikipedia.

However, I believe it to be exceedingly pedantic and donnish to insist upon the exclusion of Wikipedia from background reading far ahead of the assignment itself. By any regard, as a learning tool, Wikipedia beats peer-reviewed scientific journal articles hands down, any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. A very perfunctory scan of articles on the website will show detailed explanations of complicated scientific concepts, economic models, artistic movements and mathematical patterns, often in a manner so as to be comprehensible to the familiar.

This ostentation of pedantry that is so often displayed should be controlled so as to influence only those to whom it is applicable. For the yet learning scholar, I feel that the use of an encyclopaedia of any sort, especially the most convenient and cross-linked of ones, should not only be encouraged, but be made mandatory. This is my appeal.

Of course, I also appeal that SOPA be crushed and Wikipedia be allowed to live.


-Anirudh

Emerging Markets (2)

This post will have no preface.

Continuing from my discussion (read: Emerging Markets (1) ) of new and emerging markets, today I will talk about.. well you'll see. Markets of this class, like the internet and Wikipedia, are like the monsters of the latter half of the 20th century as conceived by writers and movie-makers alike. It starts with the smallest of acts, like throwing some garbage into the sea. It goes on like this, with everybody contributing a little bit to pollution, just because everyone is doing it. And all of a sudden - BAM! - a monster is born (think Hedorah of Godzilla fame) out of the sludge off the coast, and emerges from the sea. It proceeds to crawl into Tokyo, and engulfs everything, in precious minutes transforming the lives of everyone.

Much is the same for the emerging markets I talked about in my previous entry. Typically, it is my nature to stretch the analogy as far as it will go, but I realise that here, I'd be running the risk of sounding extremely stupid. However, just last night I came across something new.

A very new phenomenon has emerged. Something that goes by the name "social reading". Now, up until the day I turned 19, I never read newspapers. My parents kept trying to get me to read them, and just like you, I wouldn't. Then they started to occasionally say things like, "Chandu, let me introduce you to a new invention. This is a newspaper." Yet, I wouldn't. See, I don't know why I eventually started reading newspapers, except that I knew it was useful. I decided I would, and I stuck through it until it became a habit to keep up with the news. I far from read it every single day from cover to cover, but I now like knowing what is happening around the world, so I definitely accomplished something. But this story isn't about how I started reading the news, but about how you did.

Now the thing is that it's really difficult to get a child of this generation to start reading newspapers. Back during the War, when my parents were kids, they had nothing BUT newspapers. But we have it all: movies, music, more interesting books, Youtube and Facebook. Now years of good parenting and the occasional nag did nothing to get you or me to read newspapers. My father went deep into the wilderness to find gypsies who could give him a cure for my 'disease'. My mother climbed the Himalayas to get to the enlightened sage who might have a solution. News corporations put up online editions of their newspapers for the tech-savvy, and then proceeded to make it absolutely free. But none of this helped me, and none of it helped you. What did (or will) help is one idea by one person who had nothing to do with education or parenting. I don't know who came up with it, but he/she decided to put together reading and social networking.

Simply said, for some inconceivable reason, when people on Facebook saw notifications saying "Anirudh Krishnan read 'How and why the chicken crossed the road' on The Independent social reader", they wanted to read it too.

I don't care too much about whether it earns The Independent some money. What I am amazed by is the fact that one small idea created immense value and welfare to society, in a way that individual effort was absolutely unable to achieve. This is an emerging market in its own way. Sure, it may not be that spectacular a business idea (Well, it could even be! How much do you think they're making out of this?), but the idea itself is an invention of this age. An age where the silliest of ideas (again, refer to post Emerging Markets (1) ) revolutionise the world.

Write in if you have anything to add. Write in even if you don't have something to add. And definitely, write in if you'd like me to write about any topic.

-Anirudh

Emerging markets (1)

This is a reflection piece... and do not be thrown off by the title; it's not about BRIC.

As an infant economist and someone with entrepreneurial interests, I often hear people talking about opportunities, or indeed the lack thereof. I hear people discussing the successes of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and industrialists from the Tata family. I also spend a considerable amount of my time in cafés, libraries and discussion rooms, where names like Michael Dell and Steve Jobs are mentioned very often by a diverse group of young students and executives alike. More often than not, there is a Bob at this table, who says, "Ah didn't they have it easy back then! A world of opportunities, so many things to do, so many industries to explore. What do we have left? They've done it all", to great public approval and empathetic nods and grimaces.

We've all felt this way, haven't we? Oftentimes, I'm tempted to agree with Bob. It seems like it has all been done.

At this point, you say, "Ah, I've seen this before. You think I haven't figured out your style? You bring up a stereotype or a general sentiment, and then you go into a lengthy discussion trying to prove the opposite." Because of this, you think you know where I'm going with this. Well I know where you think I'm going with this, so you can stop trying now.

I'm not here to talk about the fact that new opportunities always exist, and all it takes is effort. If you're reading my blog, you're literate (unless this were a tumblr site), and I take that to indicate the intelligence to understand that. Neither is this going to be about the way Steve Jobs made money by focusing on design in a world dominated by Bill Gates. Just keep reading. Or not. Whatever.

It strikes me as a wondrous miracle that the world finds ways to accommodate us. Somehow, people create incredible value through the strangest and most impossible-sounding of ideas. You've probably heard this story, but when the internet was first proposed, people said, "what's the point", discarding it as useless under the assumption that nobody would want to put files on a public network.

This was the beginning of open-source and it brought about the biggest wave of stupidity mankind ever heard of since George Bush. Simply ridiculous ideas were born, and software companies thought it would be a good idea to release untested software to the public and allow them to figure out the problems, and Beta-testing was born. Google decided to put up an interactive map online, and said, "you fill it up", and Google Maps was born. People decided to share their knowledge, and the world's biggest encyclopaedia was born, written and managed by what is an organisational hierarchy so arbitrary and so diversified that it could very easily be confused with a child's game of 'Doctor', with the two children switching roles at the simplest whim (More on Wikipedia in the next post).

An addendum for my parents and others just as ancient:
Amma, Acha, I don't suppose you understand open-source. To put it in context, I'll take technology out of the equation. Open-source, or in non-geek-speak, the customer's contribution to their own utility, exists in the physical world too. DIY stores, self-assembly furniture from IKEA, Build-A-Bear, and Barbecue-buffets. The last strikes me as particularly stupid. Why would you go to a restaurant, only to see strips of various meats lying in ice, and roast it yourself?

But somehow, not only are these incredibly irrational ideas working, but they've been incredibly successful. Even if the ideas don't put money in the pockets of the creators, like the internet and the non-profit Wikipedia, the sheer amount of value they have created is staggering. In any social science class, one of the first constants you are introduced to is the rationality of human beings. First assumption, human beings are rational profit-maximisers. But thanks to economists like George Akerlof, and the number of businesses profiting from the advent of open-source, we're able to observe growing irrationality in human behaviour.

I very strongly feel that great business ideas in this decade (and many to come before the world decides to take us on yet another creative journey) must tap on this irrationality. Maybe we should work on trying to make stupid decisions, as did Tim Berners-Lee and Jimmy Wales (creator of Wikipedia)?


-Anirudh

An essay on International Relations

Defence spending in the People’s Republic of China has increased dramatically in recent years. Discuss whether this development poses a security threat to the United States of America. Should the United States increase its defence spending accordingly? Why or why not?

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The field of political science deals, in large part, with the concern of governments to defend their nation and interests from external attack. It is said that since 2001, the People’s Republic of China has increased its military spending by nearly 200 percent to an estimated USD 119 billion in 2010 (The Economist Online 2011). Subsequent reports state that in 2011, a further 12.7 percent increment was announced (BBC News Online 2011). As is only natural, military accumulation of such large scale is often construed by the global community as a threatening move. As a result, it is often the case that governments of various countries discuss responses to the development in terms of a possible increase in their own defence budget. This essay deals with the response of the United States government in light of this development, and argues that an increase in defence spending on the part of the White House would be unnecessary given the two countries’ bilateral relations, using international relations theories where appropriate.

The United States and China share a complex political relationship in today’s age. In the decades after their collaboration against the Soviet Union during the Cold War (1946-1991), the political atmosphere between the two countries has evolved in numerous ways. Both governments are similarly committed to world issues such as the fight against terrorism (Kan 2010), and prevention of nuclear proliferation (Nuclear Threat Initiative 1985). However, the bilateral relations are tested by issues of human rights violations (2009 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau) 2010) since China achieved its newfound economic distinction. Moreover, a dominant issue that remains unsolved is that of their varying positions regarding the legitimacy of the Taiwanese government.

            As a result of this complex relationship, and the long political history between the two nations, the United States is very likely to be concerned about the possible security threat that this arms accumulation poses to itself as well as the world community. As a result, it may choose to increase its own military spending, which, upon a similar reaction from China, could result in an arms race similar to that of the Cold War, or could desist from reacting similarly for the reasons detailed in this essay.

            There are two popular theories in international relations today that support the opinion that the United States need not increase its defence spending.  Liberalism, a theory put forth by Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane, proposes that the growth of post-War international trade has been an essential factor in achieving the relative world peace observed since 1945 (Jackson and Sørensen 2007). The globalisation called for by the Bretton Woods system[1] brought about a strong economic interdependence between the liberal economies of the world, and the wave of democratisation in this period since the end of World War II aided in the achievement of free trade. This economic mutuality, liberalisation argues, has helped in achieving warm peace between nations.

            China’s capitalist economic reforms initiated in 1978[2], through the opening up of the economy to foreign investment, privatisation of industries and decrease of protectionist tariffs increased its degree of interdependence with other countries. As a result of the US’ economic dominance and the size of the Chinese nation and population, US-China economic mutuality became important for both nations. Through cheap labour and manufacturing productivity in China, and educational and professional opportunities in the US, to mention very few of a myriad factors, the two economies have become greatly interdependent in recent years. Chinese exports to US have increased by a factor of almost 80 since 1984, and US exports to China have increased by a factor of more than 10 in the same period (Lum and Nanto 2007, 41. Table A2). Moreover, USA is China’s greatest export destination (The US-China Business Council 2010, 1. Table 8), and China is the United States’ third greatest export destination (Department of Commerce - United States of America 2011). Therefore, both these countries heavily rely on each other’s import markets. Furthermore, as of May 2011, China was the largest single holder of US public debt (Department of the Treasury/Federal Reserve Board 2011). In addition to these factors, there are other complex and multiple transnational ties between the two. Higher education, multinational companies, and even basketball bind the two countries in immeasurable ways.

The two countries are hence deeply interlinked and are genuine friends in today’s global context. It is evident that the two countries have benefited greatly from trade liberalisation and the mutual proliferation of multinational companies. As a result, neither nation would jeopardise their standing in the world by aggressing the other.

            Social constructivism, another theory, also believes in the possibility of warm peace between nations. It proposes that although international anarchy may exist, with no body governing the actions of nations, it does not necessarily entail the existence of wars. As Alexander Wendt, the best-known advocate of this theory famously put it, “anarchy is what states make of it” (Wendt 1992). Therefore, it is not the fact that anarchy exists that causes conflict, but that states have constructed negative associations through their actions, causing mistrust between nations. However, through creating positive meaning to one another, states can create trust and conflicts will cease to exist.

            The middle stages of the Cold War saw China’s opposition to the USSR on ideological grounds, based on diverging interpretations of Marxism. As a result of the stalemate that the Cold War was edging towards, the US reached out to China for its aid. Through this association, China first constructed a positive association for US out of the goodwill they had generated. In the years since this collaboration, this positive meaning that China has projected to the world community has strengthened. Its move away from stubborn communism towards capitalism (explained in great detail previously) has also caused the world to treat it with greater trust. Moreover, China has begun to portray itself as a responsible global power, contributing to almost two percent of the UN Peacekeeping force, as compared to the US’ 0.1 percent (United Nations Peacekeeping 2011). The US and China also cooperate on various levels such as the US-China WTO trade agreement (The White House Office of Public Liaison 1999), which ensured strong anti-dumping measures and anti-protectionist agreements. Moreover, in recent years, several dialogues have been held between the countries to cooperate on counter-terrorism measures through the US-China Counterterrorism sub-dialogue (U.S. Department of State 2009).

            In all these ways, the two countries are linked in multiple mutually-beneficial ways, both economically and politically, as supported by the two theories. As a result of this, warm peace exists between the two countries, and even if military superiority were achieved by either country, it would not be willing to attack the other.

            However, the challenges put forth by Realism cannot be dismissed. Realism, a theory that suggests that the selfish power-maximising nature of human beings, combined with the inevitable absence of central authority at an international level, is the cause for war and conflict.  As a result, proponents of realism suggest that military build-up should be of paramount importance. This not only means that China’s military expenditure hike could be a realist move to maximise power, but also that it could be construed by the US as such, causing a similar reaction on its part.

This is a plausible interpretation, owing to various truths about the two countries’ relationship. Firstly, being the two largest economies in the world, the two countries are directly vying for the top spot. Moreover, they have greatly differing ideologies, with the US highly liberal and democratic, while China holds on to communist beliefs, albeit incorporating elements of capitalism. The two countries also have several conflicts of interest. For one, the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 is a major point of conflict. While the US officially subscribes to the Chinese position that Taiwan is a part of China, it continues to sell defensive military equipment to Taiwan. As a result, the Chinese feel that the US has neglected “the basic standards of international relations” (Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America 2004, 1). Another issue that has strained relations is the US-operated Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan. Once set up to aid in American efforts during the Afghan War, it is extant even today, much to the displeasure of China, with which it shares a border. Owing to these issues, it is possible that China’s increase in military expenditure could indeed be in an attempt to increase its power in the world, in which case, US, being a hegemon in the world today, would increase its own spending to retain that status.

            While it is true that US-China relations perhaps do not reflect the warmth of the peace between the US and Canada, giving bearing to the realist claims, I feel that it is a slight abstraction to state that there is complete anarchy on the international stage.  In the years since its inception, the United Nations has become the foremost international body for the governance of actions of various countries. Along with subsidiary organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, UN Peacekeeping Force and International Telecommunication Union (ITU), it is able to impose restrictions on countries in response to major breaches of the standards of international relations. These could come in the form of trade embargos, monetary sanctions or refusal of financial aid from IMF and World Bank, as well as telecommunication restrictions. The UN bodies are able to wield these powers due to strong socially constructed notions of peace and cooperation at an international level, therefore garnering support from its members to impose these restrictions.

            Finally, there are myriad possible explanations for China’s large-scale increase in defence expenditure. One possibility is that China may be attempting to increase its security, not only in terms of defence, but in terms of negotiating power. With the US’ obvious superiority in economy and military, it holds great negotiating power within the UN, NATO, and other international bodies, as well as amongst other nations. It may be that China, as a fast-growing world power, is attempting to achieve the same. Another equally probable explanation is that it is simply keeping in pace with its economic growth, both in the sense that more funds are available to them in these years of economic prosperity, as well as the fact that increases in standard of living reflect higher pay to armed-forces employees. In closing, while the wisdom of the liberalist and constructivist arguments recommend that the US does not increase its spending accordingly, it is still probable that given the US’ hegemony in the world today, and its interest in retaining that position, it will do so regardless.

Bibliography

2009 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau). Country Report on Human Rights Practices, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, 2010.

BBC News Online. "China says it will boost its defence budget in 2011." BBC News. March 4, 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12631357 (accessed November 1, 2011).

Department of Commerce - United States of America. "Top U.S. Trade Partners." International Trade Administration. August 2011. http://trade.gov/mas/ian/build/groups/public/@tg_ian/documents/webcontent/tg_ian_003364.pdf (accessed November 1, 2011).

Department of the Treasury/Federal Reserve Board. "Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities." U.S. Department of the Treasury. October 18, 2011. http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt (accessed November 1, 2011).

Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America. China opposes US Congress' resolution on Taiwan. July 19, 2004. http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/xw/t143465.htm (accessed November 1, 2011).

Jackson, Robert, and Georg Sørensen. Introduction to International Relations: Theories and Approaches. Third. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Kan, Shirley A. U.S.-China Counterterrorism Cooperation: Issues for U.S. Policy. Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, Federation of American Scientists, Federation of American Scientists, 2010, 37.

Lum, Thomas, and Dick K. Nanto. China's Trade with the United States and the World. Congress Report, Congressional Research Service, Federation of American Scientists, Federation of American Scientists, 2007, 45.

Nuclear Threat Initiative. "1985 US-China Nuclear Cooperation Agreement." Nuclear Threat Initiative. 1985. http://www.nti.org/db/china/ncaorg.htm (accessed November 1, 2011).

The Economist Online. "Defence costs: The biggest military spenders." The Economist Online. June 8, 2011. http://www.economist.com/node/21518831 (accessed November 1, 2011).

The US-China Business Council. "US-China Trade Statistics and China's World Trade Statistics." The US-China Business Council. 2010. https://www.uschina.org/statistics/tradetable.html (accessed November 1, 2011).

The White House Office of Public Liaison. "Summary of U.S.-China Bilateral WTO Agreement." The US-China Business Council. November 17, 1999. https://www.uschina.org/public/991115a.html (accessed November 1, 2011).

U.S. Department of State. U.S.-China Counterterrorism Sub-Dialogue. Media Note, Office of the Spokesman, U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 2009.

United Nations Peacekeeping. "Monthly Summary of Contributions (Police, Military Experts on Mission and Troops)." United Nations Peacekeeping. September 30, 2011. http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2011/sept11_1.pdf (accessed November 1, 2011).

Wendt, Alexander. "Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics." International Organization (The MIT Press) 46, No. 2, no. Spring, 1992 (1992): 391-425.

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[1] The Bretton Woods system is a system of economic management that laid out rules for commercial and monetary relations between nations in the final years of World War II.

[2] Initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, the reforms set China on the track to becoming a market economy.

L'arte e sue modalità di espressione.

This post is a thought-piece on art.

It has been almost two months since I wrote here, and easily more than 5 weeks since I last thought about my blog. But just yesterday, about halfway through the eighth lecture by Dr. Robert Greenberg on appreciating opera as an art form, I got to thinking about art.

Okay, well it's not about art in general, but about the use of gustatory modality in art. What do I mean? When you hear the word art today, regardless of your knowledge of the subject, most people immediately think of visual art, as in painting, drawing or photography. Sure, we all understand that art is more than just visual art, and refers to any mode of expression, including music, dance, painting, drawing, photography, theatre, film, literature, architecture or sculpture, and cooking even. (My brother, Sidharth, even insists that poker should be an art form, and he the Vincent Van Gogh of it). But I don't think we've given enough thought to the various modes of expression.

We all understand that good art needn't be appealing, but almost necessarily must be individualistic, unique, emotive and expressive, and above all, bring out the author's intent. It is true that visual art, can often be grotesque, frightening, saddening, profane, abstract, and in short, aesthetically unappealing, yet be brilliant works of art. A painting such as The Great Masturbator by Salvador Dalí is one such example. Similarly, in the world of music, Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima stands as true testament to the idea that art need not be appealing to the senses, as long as its message is strong and clear.

However, it seems that modes of expression in most art forms differ greatly from those in gustatory art forms such as cooking and beer-brewing. In these arts, the quality of an "art piece" is not judged in terms of the accuracy with which the artist's intention is brought about, or even the degree of uniqueness of the piece, beyond the sensory pleasure gained by the "observer". Connoisseurs of this art are almost exclusively interested in how good the "art piece" tastes.

Does that then mean, that going by the conventional idea of art, no 'real' art form exists that deals with gustation? Is this then an opportunity for creative individuality in the arts, given the widely-acknowledged mediocrity and unoriginality in many of today's art forms? Or is there a reason for this absence of expression through one of the five senses available to us, perhaps due to the invasive nature of any such "art piece", given that a participant is therefore vulnerable to disease, bodily harm, digestive irregularity and nausea, to name a few?

Do write in if you have any views or answers to these questions. Arrivederci!

-Anirudh