Subjective optimization

I am reading a book called "You are now less dumb" by David McRaney. Like Incognito, it is a brilliant work on the inner workings of the brain. It is so filled with Aha! moments that I am having Ahagasms. Repeatedly.

Take for instance, the section on subjective optimization. A couple of psychologists set up this study where a bunch of students enroll for a photography course. The instructor tells the students to take pictures of what they find the most memorable and beautiful moments of their university life and to showcase two of the best pictures from the lot. This is before the time of widespread use of digital cameras, smartphones, Instagram, etc. The students develop film rolls (you remember those things from the ancient past?). And this is where the scientists come with a  twist. They split the students into two groups. One group is asked to choose one of the two photos which will be printed out and given to the students as souvenir. The other photo will be left behind with the instructors (and they will have no copy of it). Essentially, the student has to pick photo A or photo B then and there and he or she gets to keep the picture they chose and not the other which is lost forever.

With the other group, the scientist offers the same choice between photo A and B but they get to take their time and even reverse their decision once it has been made.

A little whiles later, the two groups are asked about their choice. The group that was forced to make a pick instantly across the board expressed happiness about their pick. The lost photo was forgotten. They had settled for one and it was the right one. On the other hand, the group that was allowed time to choose were more likely to be unhappy about their choice and were filled with regret. Maybe they should have picked the other one. They wished that they could go back in time and change their choices.

As McRaney puts it, "Getting locked into a situation with no hope of escape activates subjective optimization", i.e. "seeing life as it is as being the best that it could be" . This great tool of the psychological immune system makes what you get stuck with seem better than that which you no longer can obtain. Scientists find that it is relatively very easy to induce subjective optimization in a lab setting; offer the participant a series of possible outcomes and rig the system to ensure that they get a crappy outcome and observe how that suddenly changes to a desirable outcome as if by magic.

The book further explores this topic with another study on song choices and I am sure there are plenty of research papers in this field. But the Aha! moment for me was that this explains the relative success of arranged marriages. The strictly confined choice of partner allows the mind to make metaphorical lemonade out of lemons. They are more likely to be happy with the person they are stuck with than a system where people are free to choose their partners (and change their minds). Folks who marry someone out of their volition will be more likely to rue their choice and wonder if they made a mistake by not choosing this girl or that guy from their past. That is not to argue for or against arranged marriage but one more piece of the puzzle falls into place. I understand it better.

Irony

Salon has an obsession with David Foster Wallace. So on April 13, they wrote DFW was right in saying that irony was ruining our culture. Quoting from his seminal essay “E Unibus Pluram,” "lazy cynicism has replaced thoughtful convictions as the mark of an educated worldview". And then two weeks later was an article titled, "What DFW got wrong about irony: Our culture doesn't have enough of it". Which was fair enough. Because the article was a response to the previous article and had an "irony" "expert" talk about what he read in DFW's article and if he agreed with him. After a bit of back and forth, it was concluded that DFW was calling out a special kind of  Institutionalised Irony, and that may be bad but irony can be sincere and we need this earnest irony.

If that was the end of it, one would have had an interesting if not illuminating take on irony both from its supporters and its naysayers. But no! Salon had another article this time about how Hannah Arendt understood irony and DFW didn't. And another one today about irony and Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, David Foster Wallace. 

It would be immensely satisfying if something he wrote over twenty years ago has some insight to offer us. But it is frustrating to see DFW's name get dragged on Salon every 2 weeks as entertainment or as some in the industry are calling it "click bait". I don't know if that would be an ironic usage of a dead writer's words. What would David Foster Wallace say?

Update: My version of a comment from Salon. Three things in life are certain; death, taxes and Salon name-dropping DFW every 2 weeks.

Cricket feminism

India is a rare country where there is gender-blindness (almost) when it comes to being ignored; male athletes are just as ignored as their female counterparts. Football and hockey thrives in small pockets of the country but for the most part if you are not playing cricket, which is the national opiate, then you can go screw yourself. That is where the money is and that is where the fans are. The IPL season is on and the attention of all the cricket fans in India is tuned to it. While the exploits of Dhoni and his men have captured the imagination of the country, the women are ignored. Unless you are Preity Zinta or Shakshi.

The women's cricket team of India has its fair share of success but don't get the media attention they deserve. But that is not unusual. Women's cricket doesn't have an international audience and one needs the fans to sell Cola and mobile phones. I believe that this is a moment to make something incredible for the female athletes in India. And it involves some structural changes to make women's cricket a spectator sport. The game could do with some modest modifications that would make the sport more accessible for female cricketers. Modifications such as changing the length of the pitch from 22 yards to 18 or 20 yards. The boundaries can also be shortened to 60 yards. I have not interacted with Anjum Chopra or any of the cricketers to see if that would make any difference but I would imagine that with some unorthodox changes (like the diameter of the ball), it is possible to make the sport more explosive. If it can generate new interest for wider audience, the sport will take off. Lessons learnt from Tennis, where the women's professional tennis is now just as closely followed as the men's can be used to bring in sponsors/ viewers. The hope is that cricket can be one of the channels of empowering women in a highly misogynistic society where young girls are told by their brothers and friends that they cannot play cricket with them. My dream is a mixed league tournament, where one or two members in each team in IPL is a female cricketer. Now that would be something.

Opinion

I had a spat with a cousin on Facebook about some of his posts. This is a recurring theme, where I pick on something he said and either he or one of our other cousins defend the original post or take issue with my comment. For instance, I remember there was an incident with Dhanush getting the National award and I got burned for asking if he deserved the award or if it was nepotism. I'll quickly mention that this is all in good spirits and we don't really "fight".

The present case is about a post he made about Chennai Super Kings at the beginning of the season.

The most over-rated 'aviyal' team in IPL is CSK...Yesteryear hitters with jaded bowlers!! What a combo...!!

Two 150 plus scores cannot be a good indicator for CSK. They made lot of changes in the last 2 games.

With controversies around, I would be surprised if this team finishes off in the first four.

This was a perplexing statement. Not because CSK have been successful over the years and been predictably consistent. I took issue because 

a. There were no yesteryear hitters in the team. Brendon (Baz) McCullum had just recently spanked the Indian team (and spanked them hard). There was Dwayne Smith who was at the peak of his career. Faf, Bravo, Dhoni, Raina, Jadeja who were all members of the current team and playing well. This statement could have been made in the previous years as the batting mainstay was post-retirement Hayden and later Hussey. But both players proved to be invaluable with the bat and beyond reproach.

b. The 'aviyal' team accusation was also baseless as they had a playing 11 consisting of 6 batsmen, 1 all-rounder and 4 bowlers. They didn't have bits and piece players, i.e. who were neither "proper" batsmen nor bowlers. Again, the statement could possibly be made previously as Bravo and Albie Morkel were not quite allrounders but could bat and bowl. Didn't Bravo win the purple cap for the most wickets last season?

c. They also didn't make many changes in their team and if anything the CSK team is notorious for sticking to their 11 and making far few changes when compared to the other teams.

d. It was too early to call the bowlers jaded as the bowling mainstay of Bravo/Ashwin/Jadeja had a lot of scalps last season and there were two exciting newcomers in Mohit Sharma and Ishwar Pandey. (Mohit played last season and performed admirably).

e. As for the controversies, it would be hard to say if it would affect team morale and thus the performance but being professional sportsmen, one imagines that the team would play to their best potential. It was more likely that the team would struggle with fitting the new players (Baz and Dwayne) as this was a new contract season. (And Bravo who got injured in the first game and might miss the rest of the season would be missed)

My point was that while it is true that CSK has a reputation to live up to and that opinion may differ about if that reputation was well-deserved, the analysis of the situation was completely factually wrong. It didn't look like my cousin was someone who read the game and knew anything about it. And I said so. Plainly. Without mincing words.

And then, CSK won 6 games on the trot. I didn't feel vindicated by their victory any less than I would have been devastated if they had lost. It wasn't about winning or losing or about my support for the team. It was about analysing the context of the game and making keen and insightful observations.

That would have been the end of it but CSK played Kings XI again and withered under the onslaught of Maxwell, Miller and Bailey. My cousin beamed over the loss, loudly exclaiming, "I told you so!"

I called him out and said that if he was going to talk cricket it would help to talk like someone who knew what he was talking about.

I don't know if he took offence but he posted

What I scribble here is my opinion and I do hope I am entitled to write in my own wall.

What you comment is your opinion and I agree you are entitled to provide on my opinion.

Call the Whambulance!!!! 

I replied that while everyone is entitled to their opinion, they are not entitled to their own set of facts. 

It is sad that it needs to be said. And this observation is not limited to cricket. Let me illustrate it with one of the other spats that we have had before.

Tamil writer Sujatha, according to my cousin, is the greatest science fiction writer. Or one of the greatest.

I took issue with that statement because in the pantheon of science fiction writers, from HG Wells to Ray Bradbury, Arthur Clarke to Asimov, Philip K Dick to Heinlein, Sujatha is an obscure writer who would be hard pressed to finish in the top 100. If Sujatha was alive today and the question was asked of him, he would agree. And not out of modesty. Sujatha was inspired by the golden age of science fiction (late 1930s to early 40s) and several of his works, for instance 'En iniya enthira' written in the late 80s echoed this. It wouldn't do to call him the greatest science fiction writer in Tamil. Because that is a lonely race. I don't know another prominent writer of science fiction in Tamil. That is not a testament to his prowess but a scathing rebuke of the science illiteracy and general apathy of the Tamil literary world. We are not just 50 years behind the times, we are regressing. This is why tawdry stuff like 'Enthiran' gets rave reviews when it is so full of utter horse-manure.

My point, apart from the observation that Tamil literature is in a death-sprial, is that he is entitled to his opinion. If for instance he had posted, "Sujatha is my favourite writer of science fiction", I cannot comment on it saying, "No, he is not". I could comment that there are some interesting authors with wonderful books that maybe he should check out. But that is about it. He cannot, however call him the greatest, and hide under the phrase, "in my opinion". Rajini is not the greatest actor. Rahman is not the best musician. Language matters, even if it is a post on Facebook. And for someone who is as prolific as he is, he should pay attention to it sometimes. (Doesn't mean one can't use satire, hyperbole, etc for comic effect)

If he had posted  "I hate CSK. I hope they lose. And CSK fans can suck my balls" - that would be an honest opinion. 

End of rant.