I think I have cracked it!
I presume I have found the answer to that ever pervasive question.
"Why is India like what it is?" The answer is fundamental.
It is 'choice'. Like Neo says in the Matrix - "The problem is choice."
How?
Here's my derivation.
It starts from 'freedom'. Something that everyone wants. But like most other things, it is relative. What is true freedom? Freedom TO choose .. or freedom FROM choice?Which would you prefer? The towering accountability of a wrong choice (there is a non-zero probability of a negative outcome in almost every decision), or the so-called 'shameful' submissiveness to another's choice with perks such as zero risk?
My guess is - you chose the former. Lets delve a little deeper to deduce the optimal choice.
Consider this basic question - "What would you prefer - a vacation by the beach or the responsibilities of a high-stakes managerial job?"
The answer , based on universal human tendency, would be "a vacation by the beach". This can be extrapolated to the statement -
"Humans find peace in the state of being care-free" - no strings attached. This is ,by and large, a pure conclusion.
Thus, by default, an average human wants to reduce the number of choices s/he makes per day to maintain a level of peace-of-mind.
In a case where number of choices available > threshold of choices to retain the lower limit of peacefulness, the eligible, remnant choices are made
by someone else. In this equation, if the trivial and immaterial aspects i.e., thirst for choice and hesitation/unwillingness to give up choice, are removed then everything is balanced! And this is what we see everyday.
An average guy like one who runs a autorikshaw, has given up his 'freedom-of-choice' when it comes to choosing the most productive minister for his state.
Because, he can be blissfully ignorant about the details of the state policies and administration and instead, devote his thought to solving the problem of how to pay for his son's mid-term school fees. A democratic government is always 'for the people and by the people', but if the above is largely true, it is rarely 'of the people'. Note that this does not prove anyone (or any group of people) wrong or right.
What this illustrates is that democracy is a utopian concept. One in which each and every citizen is well-informed and actively takes part in the machinery of society. In such a case, there would be adequate fairness as each individual is looking out for her/himself and takes completely responsibility of the outcomes of her/his choices.
In our current democracy, individuals do look-out for themselves, but in a smaller framework of events.
Consider a road-laying contractor vying for a large government contract.
Lets assume his profit is constant. But the probability of him landing the contract is dependent on the bribe he places for the deciding officer.
The contractor could place a margin of his expenditure as the bribe and retain enough to build quality roads. Or, he could place a large bribe and reduce
the quality of the roads to be laid. The probability of winning the contractor is easily more in the latter case.
The deciding officer, on the other hand, could either choose the best-quality contractor while taking less bribe and avoiding re-laying of the roads in the
near future or could choose the highest bribe and wait for the roads to degrade soon for the next contract dispatch. The obvious choice is the latter.
This is pure logic and is devoid of any human abstractions like sincerity to the job or altruism.
Therefore, the Nash equilibrium is 'bad roads' and 'richer officers'.
Moving on to a more controversial topic. Oppression of women.
Logically, an average Indian woman prefers NOT to take the 'big' decisions of her family rather than fight for her 'voice'.
Why is this? Purely based on the previously illustrated logic, she would rather accept a man's decision than bear the brunt of a wrong choice.
It may outwardly seem like an unjust and unfair predicament, but upon close inspection, we see the duality to it. It can also provide the comfort of absolute inertness and many-a-time provide the power to blame. This sounds unparliamentary, but it becomes very obvious if you keep your prejudices aside and retain only pure logic. Women are in no way cerebrally-unequal to men. They could easily stand shoulder-to-shoulder (if not higher) with men when it comes to cognitive thinking and decision making and yet they do not. The only probable advantage for men is the fact that the average Indian male is physically stronger than the average Indian female. But this is highly inadequate to single-handedly create a male-dominant society.
Logically, if men were to be in a similar position where they could either choose strategies of regaining their freedom of choice or choose to believe that they are generically bad decision makers, the equilibrium would be the latter.
The same principle can be extended throughout the socio-political construct of India.
So, I believe that up until now I have had a wrong notion of what 'true-freedom' means.
I have come to a conclusion that what we all truly yearn for is what we had when we were kids - Absolute freedom from choice!
P.S: Please enlighten me with your comments.
I presume I have found the answer to that ever pervasive question.
"Why is India like what it is?" The answer is fundamental.
It is 'choice'. Like Neo says in the Matrix - "The problem is choice."
How?
Here's my derivation.
It starts from 'freedom'. Something that everyone wants. But like most other things, it is relative. What is true freedom? Freedom TO choose .. or freedom FROM choice?Which would you prefer? The towering accountability of a wrong choice (there is a non-zero probability of a negative outcome in almost every decision), or the so-called 'shameful' submissiveness to another's choice with perks such as zero risk?
My guess is - you chose the former. Lets delve a little deeper to deduce the optimal choice.
Consider this basic question - "What would you prefer - a vacation by the beach or the responsibilities of a high-stakes managerial job?"
The answer , based on universal human tendency, would be "a vacation by the beach". This can be extrapolated to the statement -
"Humans find peace in the state of being care-free" - no strings attached. This is ,by and large, a pure conclusion.
Thus, by default, an average human wants to reduce the number of choices s/he makes per day to maintain a level of peace-of-mind.
In a case where number of choices available > threshold of choices to retain the lower limit of peacefulness, the eligible, remnant choices are made
by someone else. In this equation, if the trivial and immaterial aspects i.e., thirst for choice and hesitation/unwillingness to give up choice, are removed then everything is balanced! And this is what we see everyday.
An average guy like one who runs a autorikshaw, has given up his 'freedom-of-choice' when it comes to choosing the most productive minister for his state.
Because, he can be blissfully ignorant about the details of the state policies and administration and instead, devote his thought to solving the problem of how to pay for his son's mid-term school fees. A democratic government is always 'for the people and by the people', but if the above is largely true, it is rarely 'of the people'. Note that this does not prove anyone (or any group of people) wrong or right.
What this illustrates is that democracy is a utopian concept. One in which each and every citizen is well-informed and actively takes part in the machinery of society. In such a case, there would be adequate fairness as each individual is looking out for her/himself and takes completely responsibility of the outcomes of her/his choices.
In our current democracy, individuals do look-out for themselves, but in a smaller framework of events.
Consider a road-laying contractor vying for a large government contract.
Lets assume his profit is constant. But the probability of him landing the contract is dependent on the bribe he places for the deciding officer.
The contractor could place a margin of his expenditure as the bribe and retain enough to build quality roads. Or, he could place a large bribe and reduce
the quality of the roads to be laid. The probability of winning the contractor is easily more in the latter case.
The deciding officer, on the other hand, could either choose the best-quality contractor while taking less bribe and avoiding re-laying of the roads in the
near future or could choose the highest bribe and wait for the roads to degrade soon for the next contract dispatch. The obvious choice is the latter.
This is pure logic and is devoid of any human abstractions like sincerity to the job or altruism.
Therefore, the Nash equilibrium is 'bad roads' and 'richer officers'.
Moving on to a more controversial topic. Oppression of women.
Logically, an average Indian woman prefers NOT to take the 'big' decisions of her family rather than fight for her 'voice'.
Why is this? Purely based on the previously illustrated logic, she would rather accept a man's decision than bear the brunt of a wrong choice.
It may outwardly seem like an unjust and unfair predicament, but upon close inspection, we see the duality to it. It can also provide the comfort of absolute inertness and many-a-time provide the power to blame. This sounds unparliamentary, but it becomes very obvious if you keep your prejudices aside and retain only pure logic. Women are in no way cerebrally-unequal to men. They could easily stand shoulder-to-shoulder (if not higher) with men when it comes to cognitive thinking and decision making and yet they do not. The only probable advantage for men is the fact that the average Indian male is physically stronger than the average Indian female. But this is highly inadequate to single-handedly create a male-dominant society.
Logically, if men were to be in a similar position where they could either choose strategies of regaining their freedom of choice or choose to believe that they are generically bad decision makers, the equilibrium would be the latter.
The same principle can be extended throughout the socio-political construct of India.
So, I believe that up until now I have had a wrong notion of what 'true-freedom' means.
I have come to a conclusion that what we all truly yearn for is what we had when we were kids - Absolute freedom from choice!
P.S: Please enlighten me with your comments.
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