bureaucracy and initiatives

Bureaucracy can be painful for the same reason why legal disputes exist: Logical if-then statements can exhaust only so many possibilities. Reality will always surprise you with more possibilities than you can write down.

The reason why bureaucracies work smoother in advanced economies is not because developed countries are better at building systems. They just have a better work ethic, that is all.

You can give people with a better work ethic more space to manoeuvre. In other words, you can comfortably cut the number of if-then statements, underdetermine your system and give initiative to your bureaucrats. Less number of rules translate into less possibility of generating absurd contradictions and ping-pong processes. Common sense prevails.

There is a strong correlation between work ethic and economic development, but the road up the graph is laden with chicken-and-egg problems for developing countries. Governments can not trust their own bureaucrats and therefore increase the number of if-then statements, which in turn leads to dysfunctionalities and more bribe offers by citizens to get things done, which in turn corrupts the bureaucrats and attracts more corrupt people into bureaucracy...

naming new concepts

Every act of naming is an alteration of our intellectual topography. It is as important as the discovery itself, since a badly named new concept can significantly delay future discoveries involving that concept.

A signifier can never entirely encapsulate the meaning of its signified, but it can jump-start a trail of suggestions that sequentially unravels the meaning.

A good name should lead to apt associations and metaphors. It should also fit nicely within the already existing constellation of names given to nearby concepts. (It should be distinct in a way that suggests its signified's difference.)

missing middle

When your first baby is born, you will feel an irresistible desire to immediately share the news. If you use social media, then you will share your baby's photo and let the ranking algorithms take care of the rest.

However, if you do not use social media, then the dissemination dynamics will be very different. Being unable to broadcast to your entire network, you will have to separately write to individual people. This in turn will cause an uneasy situation.

You will feel comfortable writing to both close friends and far away ones whom you have not seen for a very long time. After all having a baby is a good excuse to catch up with everybody. But it will feel very weird writing to friends who are neither too close nor too far away.

Similarly, it is easy to ask for money from your close friends and totally unknown strangers, but it feels very difficult to do so from semi-strangers.

ethics as linearization

My revelation came a short-time ago, during a philanthropic adventure in the education world.

I saw a lot of money and resources being scatter-wasted. Just like the broken education system itself, education foundations were trying to salvage as many kids as possible, resulting in undistinguished projects with low benefit densities.

Human potential is not evenly distributed. Every human being is important of course, but the people who can and will carry us forward constitute a very small minority. Artificially inserting a veil of ignorance in our decision-making mechanisms in the name of justice breeds nothing but mediocracy.

Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.

Eric Hoffer - The True Believer (Page 33)

Our world is filled with power law distributions and will continue to get more non-linear as it becomes faster and more complicated.

Our ethics is also non-linear, but in exactly the opposite way. We feel contempt for the advantaged. We hate handing out resources to the innately more capable. We are inclined to help the weak, cure the damaged, assist the incapable.

Our ethics is a never-ending struggle to linearise the world. It is as if we are trying to nullify our own chances of being left behind wounded.

Of course, this type of individualistic thinking makes absolutely no sense at the species level, because no trait of any social value is evenly distributed. Very few kids are born to be leaders, entrepreneurs, academicians, researchers etc. We need to find these kids as immediately as possible and concentrate all our resources on them. Scattering our resources is wasteful. We can not treat everyone as a potential Einstein.

Why are we so delusional? Because we lost trust in our systems all together. Filtering mechanisms got abused by the incumbent power holders, hopelessness slowly settled in and eventually bursted in a moral upheaval, resulting in an extremely suboptimal equilibrium.

Every god-damn complex-enough system eventually turns elitist. There are elite bacterias, companies, soccer players, singers, viruses, race horses, artists, ants, economies, minerals... If non-linearity is built into the very fabric of the systems around us, we need to learn to behave in a non-linear manner as well.

Justness and nonlinearity can co-exist. There is a whole spectrum between being a Machiavellian monster and naively rejecting the simple tautological statement that exceptionality is exceptional. We need to learn to trust ourselves again so that we can probe the grey zones where the better equilibriums lie.

That kid in the back of the classroom is asking irritating questions to the teacher because he is sick of the non-rigourous nature of the material being hammered into his brain. We set up superficial frameworks to protect the mediocre minds from bottomless depths. While doing so, we lost those who are actually capable of navigating such depths.

That kid near the window is staring outside and thinking about the massively multiplayer strategy game he played last night because he is sick of the exceptionally boring teacher. He is learning by doing at a much faster pace inside realistic simulations and his gaze is meant to defend himself against an intrusive mind-fuck.

Education foundations need to save these academic failures who are actually our best hopes.

anonymity and masks

Masks are simple instruments that transport us into different worlds. They help us temporarily get away from ourselves and our societal burdens. They are like pre-historic versions of virtual-reality glasses, exploiting the already-existing self-deceptive powers of the human mind.

Modern societies no longer wear masks to get in contact with the tribal spirits, but they nevertheless engage in a similar practice within the ever-evolving and ever-present social texture of the internet.

Usernames and profile photos help us assume different personas and achieve what is called pseudo-anonymity. In fact, internet offers even more. Some sites let you go completely invisible and express yourself in various forms fully-anonymously. (Of course, such a disappearance act is not possible in the physical world, even if everyone wears the same exact mask.)

Pseudo-anonymity and full-anonymity lead to very different behavioural outcomes.

Say you enter a masquerade ball where everyone is wearing a different mask. Since people can be distinguished from each other, they bear a reputational risk, just as in the real world. The only difference is that this particular risk lasts a controllable period of time since you always have the option to leave the ball. Of course, as you spend more time inside mingling with others and building up a profile, you have less of an incentive to reset everything by leaving and coming back with a different mask.

Surprisingly, inside such a pseudo-anonymous environment, people not only behave well but also act more like themselves. This is a very deep insight about human nature. Just reflect on it for a while.

Pseudonymous participation in forums is different in several ways from anonymous participation. Disqus.com, a commenting platform used to handle discussions on more than 1 million websites, analyzed the quantity and quality of comments from anonymous, pseudonymous, and named individuals. They defined quality as the number of “likes” and/or replies each type of comment gathered, as opposed to the number of flags, spam markers, and deletes that commenter received. Anonymous users provided the lowest quality comments, but it was pseudonymous rather than named users who provided the highest quality comments. Overall 61 percent of the pseudonymous comments were seen as positive, whereas 51 percent of those from people using their real names and only 34 percent of the anonymous comments possessed the positive quality attributes. 
- Evil by Design

Time seems to have a mystical effect on our relationship with society. Our real personality and expressed personality start to diverge the moment we start interacting with our new environment. It is as if we model the society in our minds and this model slowly takes over our relationship with the society and gradually causes us to become slaves of our own thoughts.

Our real face can be thought of as just another mask. Put in other words, once we wear a mask long enough, it literally becomes our face and the tragic cycle repeats itself: We once again desire to wear a mask to become our real selves.

In this sense, leaving and rejoining an online community can have a real therapeutic effect.

Unfortunately, in the real world, it is not possible to completely reset your already existing relationships. But what you can do is to leave your existing network entirely and try building a brand new one. (For instance, I have personally witnessed people reinventing themselves by moving abroad.)

Full anonymity can be outright dangerous. When we know that our mask is constantly changing or that we can not be seen at all, we do all sorts of weird, shameful stuff. (Is that why we invented God?) It is as if we lose our personality all together and return to this amorphous base human being.

For instance, in traffic, we can act like a maniac and suddenly cease to act like a maniac once we make an eye contact with the person we are quarrelling with.

In such instances, civilisation and its accompanying norms disappear along with us. We can harass, degrade, troll, even rape if given the opportunity. (Of course, in real life, we can not go invisible, but we can be in remote places where there are no gazers in sight.)

Summing up, although there is a subtle difference between wearing a mask and no mask, there is a huge difference between wearing a mask and being completely unidentifiable. One should keep this in mind while structuring online social environments.

şişeler ve bombeler

Cam şişelerin dibinde bulunan bombe boşluklar, bir taşla yedi kuş vuran müthiş bir dizayn detayı:

- Bombenin yaratılması için kullanılan ekstra cam, şişenin ağırlık merkezini aşağıya çekerek şişenin devrilme riski azaltıyor. 

- Şişenin masayla temas ettiği yüzey azaldığı için temas noktalarındaki ağırlık artıyor. Böylece şişenin masada kayma riski azalıyor.

- Şişenin masayla temas ettiği yüzeyin azalması ve arada hapsedilen hava sayesinde şişenin masayla olan ısı alışverişini yavaşlıyor. Böylece şişe daha uzun süre soğuk kalabiliyor. (Katı-katı ilişkisindeki ısı transfer hızı katı-gaz ilişkisinkinden daha hızlıdır.)

- Şişenin altına başparmak sokularak, tek elle zarif bir şekilde servis yapılabiliyor.

- Şişe veya içindeki sıvı transparan değilse, şişenin hacmi olduğundan daha fazlaymış gibi algılanıyor.

- Sıvının içerisinde zamanla oluşabilecek organik parçacıklar dibe çöktüklerinde geniş bir yüzeye dağılmıyor. Böylece parçacıklar kendi ağırlıklarıyla zamanla birbirlerine yapışıyor ve şişe servis edilirken bu birikinti dipte kalıyor.

- Bombe mekanik güçlendirme etkisi yaratıyor. Böylece sıvı basınçla şişeleniyorsa, şişenin alttan patlaması engelleniyor. 

Çay bardaklarının dizaynıyla ilgili 2010'da yazıdığım yazı da ilginizi çekebilir.

two opposite lives

My wife and I used to live in an exceptionally beautiful and calm place, but overtime we got completely used to it. Even the kaleidoscopic sunsets stopped getting our attention. Then we went back to the inner city chaos. The transition was complete hell, but we eventually got used to the dirt, noise and traffic. Only when we alternate between these two worlds, do we realise the advantages of both.

Similarly,

  • I alternate between mathematics and business. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but each nourishes me in a different way. Math keeps me sharp and gives me meaning, while business keeps me energised and gives me financial freedom. Moreover, the transition periods themselves are also beneficial in the sense that they induce sudden synaptic pruning and help me reset my mind. (This reset is harder than the type you get from going on a holiday.)

  • I enjoy pessimistic existentialist artists, but optimistic progressive philosophers. I guess I get energized from one to another.

Whatever you do, find something "opposite" to do as well. Going in between the two will increase both your satisfaction and stamina.

eğitim ve temeller

Matematik ilerledikçe soyutlaşır. Üç beş yerde, farklı formlarda görünen bir yapı aslında tek bir yapı olabilir. Fakat bu gerçek bir üst soyutsallıkta saklı olduğu için yüzyıllarca gözden kaçabilir.

Mesela kümeler teorisinin ancak 1900'lerde geliştirilebildiğini biliyor muydunuz?

Matematiğin tamamının 9 adet kümeler teorisi aksiyomuna indirgenmesi matematikçilerin gündelik hayatında pek bir şey değiştirmese de, öğrencilerinin hayatını tamamen değiştirdi. Ufacık çocuklar ilkokulda kümeler teorisiyle tanışmaya başladı ve bu bir sürü soruna yol açtı...

Matematik tarihi geometriyle başlar. Geometri elle tutulurdur. Kümeler teorisi ise çok soyuttur, motive edilmesi bile güçtür çünkü ileri matematiğin kendi iç ihtiyaçlarından ortaya çıkmıştır. Oysa geometri tarlalardan gelmedir. Geometrinin çözdüğü problemleri çocuklara anlatmak çok daha kolaydır.

Doğal olan öğrencilerin matematiği tarihsel sırasıyla öğrenmesidir çünkü insanlık da bu şekilde keşfetmiştir. (Bilişsel gelişimimiz için geçerli olan bu ilke fiziksel gelişimimiz için de geçerlidir: Anne karnındaki bir insan embriyosu kırk hafta gibi kısa bir süre içerisinde tüm evrimsel tarihimiz üzerinden hızlıca geçer.) Ayrıca tarih demek inişli çıkışlı, heyecanlı bir drama demektir. Dolayısıyla bir konunun tarihselliğiyle anlatılması daha fazla hikayeleştirilmeye olanak sağlar.

Hiç bir doğal öğrenme süreci temellerle başlamaz. Tarihte de temeller hep sonradan bulunmuştur. Öğrenme ihtiyacı bir problemle başlar. Motive edici şey problemdir. Biz ise çocuklara sürekli araç gereç öğretiyoruz, sonra da niye sıkılıyorlar diye şaşıyoruz. Halimiz hayretler verici gerçekten.

Doktora seviyesinde matematik nasıl yapılıyorsa ilkokulda da öyle yapılmalı. İlk önce basit de olsa ilgi çekici bir problem ortaya atılmalı. Sonra öğrenciler bunu nasıl çözebilecekleriyle ilgili biraz debelenmeli. Güzel ipuçlarıyla öğrencilerin gerekli matematiksel araçları kendilerinin keşfetmesi sağlanmalı.

Daha da güzeli, herkesin gözünün önünde öğretmenin kendisinin bu araçları tekrar keşfetmeye çalışması, minik hatalar yapması, dolanması durması, sesli düşünmesi...

bilim haberleri

Türk basınında sürekli tekrar eden iki tip bilim haberi var:

1) Cahil insanların "olağanüstü" işlere imza atması. Örnek: "Silopi'li genç tarla güvenliği için robot yaptı"

2) Halkımızın zaten yüz yıllardır "bildiği" bir şeyi Batı'lı bilimadamlarının anca öğrenmesi. Örnek: "Bilimsel olarak kanıtlandı... Anadolu'da ay için söylenen o söz boşuna değilmiş..."

Kısacası, dude Urfa'da Oxford vardı da biz mi gitmedik? Bir gelişmemize izin verseler ebesini ağlatacağız dünyanın! Bizim deneylere ihtiyacımız yok, gönülden bağlıyız kainata...

Bu arada ilgili haberlere link vermedim çünkü bu haberleri yayınlayan osuruktan gazetelerimize ek görüntüleme yaratmak istemedim. Lütfen Google'dan aramayın. Merak etmeyin. Merak edilecek bir şey yok. Hatta mümkünse bu yazıyı da unutun.

speed of information and depth of ignorance

I like going to cafes by myself, just to have some tea and let my mind wander around. Often I end up eavesdropping the nearby conversations. Sometimes the level of ignorance I witness is stupefying.

The fact that these conversations are sprinkled with Facebook videos shown across the tables indicates to me that the increased speed of information is responsible for this.

Our minds are quite defenceless against junk. In fact, when not armed with a good common sense and good education, our minds attract junk like a giant black hole. The greater the amount of junk circulating around us, the greater our junk density becomes.

In other words, the increased speed of good information does not have a cancelling effect on the increased speed of junk, because we attract junk much faster.