Sunday, January 31, 2016

In the spirit of mitigating the Dunning-Kruger effect, what are effective strategies to increase one's awareness of one's ignorance or incompetence?

Let's ask David Dunning himself if he thinks the Dunning-Kruger effect can be mitigated and if yes, how.

In 2014, David Dunning wrote an article for the Pacific Standard magazine. Titled 'We are all confident idiots' (Page on psmag.com), in it he offers the Socratic method as a tool that could help us disabuse ourselves of our misbeliefs.

  • The first step in the right direction is to reveal to ourselves where we stand in our knowledge about a particular topic.
  • With its inter-linked series of questions and strict adherence to logic the Socratic method, when used correctly and sincerely, is an ideally constructed agent for unveiling to ourself our own ignorance.

But this is easier said than done because the Socratic method is not for the faint-hearted.
  • It requires our willingness to abandon our cushion of complacency and inhabit the zone of discomfort. That's not all.
  • A group or at least two person activity may also often be necessary. After all, if we debate with ourselves, we are unlikely to unveil all of our blind spots. Self-preservation instincts will kick in when we try to challenge our most sacrosanct beliefs.
  • It requires a willingness to expose weak chinks in our armor to others.
  • It means we can't cling to our vanity and hide behind false pride during Socratic debates. If we do, then the debates become pointless. 
  • Another way to try to challenge our pre-cognitive fallacies in specific areas would be to take quizzes on those topics. These days there are online quizzes on just about every topic. Many can be taken anonymously. Results of such quizzes would be incontrovertible, objective data on the state of one's knowledge on that topic. How well do such data match our cherished beliefs about our knowledge or skill on that topic? A starting point on the road to hopefully better skills or knowledge on that topic.

I think your question shows a measure of self-awareness. As David Dunning emphasizes, saying, 'I don't know' is often especially hard, and this applies to any of us. If anything, the Dunning-Kruger Effect highlights lack of self-awareness. In that sense, it deals with pre-cognitive dissonance as in we don't deny our incompetence. We simply can't see it in the first place. And this blind spot applies even when we are highly skilled and competent in something because then we tend to assume that others are equally so. This blind spot of the skilled is the often-overlooked side of the Dunning-Kruger coin.

I find your approach reasonable, even laudable. Only quibble I have is with your stated wish for 'faster learning'. It implies mitigating the Dunning-Kruger Effect is somehow a short-cut for speed learning. That does disservice to the spirit and intent of learning. Learning takes however long it takes. My experience has taught me that impatience is an obstacle to learning and to self-awareness.

Oh, and if you missed it, David Dunning did a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) a while back. The entire thread is well worth the read. Science AMA Series:I’m David Dunning, a social psychologist whose research focuses on accuracy and illusion in self-judgment (you may have heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect). How good are we at “knowing thyself”? AMA! • /r/science

https://www.quora.com/In-the-spirit-of-mitigating-the-Dunning-Kruger-effect-what-are-effective-strategies-to-increase-ones-awareness-of-ones-ignorance-or-incompetence/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala


Sunday, January 24, 2016

Can macho behavior be explained by the handicap principle? The logic would be the following : "I am a healthy young male, therefore I can afford to display aggressive, silly behavior, just in order to demonstrate how inconsequential it is to me. Just to show that I have the genetic firepower to back it up." Note: this question is not an endorsement of macho behavior.


I think not one but two hypotheses, namely the Handicap principle and the Dunning–Kruger effect, could help explain display of aggressive, silly behavior in this particular instance.

How to differentiate a fit male from one pretending to be fit?

  • The Handicap Principle doesn't explicitly mention cheaters. As originally proposed by Amotz Zahavi, the closest it comes to cheaters is, 'Characters which attract the other sex cannot always be separated from those which intimidate rivals of the same sex' (1). 
    • Characters which attract the other sex refers to potential reward.
    • Characters which intimidate rivals of the same sex refers to potential cost.
    • Degree of overlap between reward-yielding and costly characters is an additional issue.
  • A modification of the Handicap Principle proposed by Alan Grafen in 1991 (2) states
    • The Darwinian distinction between natural and sexual selection is 'a distinction between selection of ordinary traits on the one hand, and the selection of signaling traits on the other'.
    • 'Ordinary traits are selected for efficiency'
    • OTOH, signaling traits entail waste, i.e. 'self-inflicted costs of the signalers'.
  • According to Zahavi- Grafen, a stable sexual signaling system should be honest and costly for the signaler yet the signals/characters themselves have no inherent meaning. How could that be?
    • Intent of the signaling, as in intent of macho behavior, is ultimately irrelevant.
    • Regardless whether macho display is authentic or pretense, what matters is what''s perceived by the receiver.
    • There are two signal receivers, one, the other sex, and two, same sex rivals.
  • The Handicap Principle does not assert that a signaling system needs to be honest and costly with greater costs for signalers of poorer quality. Rather, it asserts that any stable signaling system needs to have such properties.
    • Stability is thus the key property to assess macho behavior within the purview of the Handicap Principle.
    • The Zahavi-Grafen modification implies key cost is over time as in stability of the display, over a lifespan for an individual and across generations for a species.
    • Such a system also allows for occasional deceit.
Moving on from theory, we observe in nature that certain sexual displays, behaviors, vocalizations and other communications remain stable rituals within a species. The peacock is an obvious example.
  • We can infer from this that such displays are part of an ESS (Evolutionarily stable strategy).
  • In turn, ESS suggests that honest display gets rewarded and that cheating is costly. How so?
  • The more frequently a signal is misleading, e.g. macho display without the real strength to back it up, over time the signal receivers (the other sex and same sex rivals) would evolve to ignore such signals, and signals that are most abused would also be the ones to fall into disuse.
What to conclude about costs for human macho behavior cheaters from all this?
  • Macho behavior may not entail much energy (cost), at least for some time among (some) young men since it is frequently and abundantly on display the world over.
  • Long term, poor quality macho signals would either not yield progeny/fewer progeny, stability of macho display being the contingent factor, both at the individual level over a lifespan, and at the group level for a given culture.
  • Incompetent signal receivers could sustain poor quality signalers (even across generations).

I derive that last bit directly from the Dunning–Kruger effect. In David Dunning's own words (4), 'incompetent people do not recognize—scratch that, cannot recognize—just how incompetent they are, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. For poor performers to recognize their ineptitude would require them to possess the very expertise they lack'.
  • Per the Handicap Principle, the signal receiver determines whether macho display is authentic or pretense. 
  • How good are signal receivers in discriminating between genuinely fit males versus pretenders?
  • Scope for pretenders thus depends on signal receiver ability. 
  • Enter Dunning-Kruger. It places the burden on the cognitive bias of the signal receiver.
  • Thus, cognitive bias of signal receivers regulates possible success of macho cheaters, i.e. those without the 'genetic firepower' to back up their macho display.
  • Signal receivers who habitually overrate their ability, in this case to discern genuinely fit males from pretenders, would help sustain macho displays that amount to 'aggressive, silly behavior'.
  • Let's also keep in mind that there are two sets of signal receivers, one, women, and two, rival men. Incompetence on the part of both or either could help sustain macho displays that amount to 'aggressive, silly behavior'.

Controlled studies could distinguish the degree of contribution of each set of signal receiver, women versus rival men. Maybe also reveal interesting cultural and/or ethnic and/or geographic differences in the contribution of each set towards the success of macho displays that amount to 'aggressive, silly behavior'?

Bibliography
  1. Zahavi, Amotz. "Mate selection—a selection for a handicap." Journal of theoretical Biology 53.1 (1975): 205-214. Page on arizona.edu
  2. Grafen, Alan. "1: Modelling in behavioural ecology." Behavioural ecology: an evolutionary approach 3 (1991): 5-31. http://users.ox.ac.uk/~grafen/cv...
  3. Kruger, Justin, and David Dunning. "Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments." Journal of personality and social psychology 77.6 (1999): 1121. Page on nottingham.ac.uk
  4. Dunning, D. (2014, November-December). We are all confident idiots. Pacific Standard, 7,46-54 Page on psmag.com


https://www.quora.com/Can-macho-behavior-be-explained-by-the-handicap-principle/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala


Sunday, January 17, 2016

What are some endearing examples of quixotic behaviour in the modern world? In these cynical and dark times, what are some stories or images that evoke a sense of idealism despite being naive and impractical, or seemingly motivated by delusions?

Let's not forget every generation describes its own times as cynical and dark. And yet every generation also throws up its share of idealists, who challenge the status quo head on and generate change for the rest of us. After all, be it middling or lasting, isn't change emblematic of every generation and doesn't change entail the quixotic in some shape or form?

I highlight in my answer the quixotic accomplishments of a music reformer, the world's oldest Ph.D., the outsider who solved the problem of chronic homelessness in the US, an Indian and a Kenyan who gave up or used their livelihood to feed the homeless, the Japanese pensioners who volunteered to clean up the Fukushima nuclear plant leak, and the disabled Chinese men who persevered on their project of environmental conservation when even their neighbors were unwilling to help.

T. M. Krishna, a musical iconoclast, the Indian music man for all seasons.
In the world of music, I doubt there is another to match Krishna's quixotic behavior. Many non-Indians may be unaware of classical Indian music. Stretching back centuries in unbroken lineages, each region in India evolved a distinct form and style of classical music. In South India, it's called Carnatic music. As with many things with a storied and ancient past, this art form remains untouched by the proclivity for greater inclusiveness. Entry and presence within this life-long vocation is thus restricted to the few, those few entitled by virtue of birth. Enter T. M. Krishna, the Don Quixote of Carnatic music. A child prodigy. Debut at age 12 at the  Madras Music Academy's famous December Madras Music Season.

Already an iconoclast who pushed the boundary of acceptable norms in the preposterously staid Carnatic music world, he dispensed with age-old strictures on prescribed kacheri (concert) performances. He followed up with an even more ambitious 588 page opus on this art form, A Southern Music: Exploring the Karnatik Tradition: T.M. Krishna: 9789350298213: Amazon.com: Books. The anachronistically exclusive purview of the upper caste Brahmin, even today its doors firmly closed to other castes, in the chapter An Unequal Music, Krishna,'describes how the urban Brahmin elite have dominated the art since the late 19th century and how they have not let other castes take part in it' (The game changer: T.M. Krishna sheds convention in his new film and creates music without frills. By Lakshmi Subramanian in The Week, Dec 6, 2014).

Obviously a restless and supremely talented musical wunderkind, this was only a preview to Krishna's single-minded and utterly audacious quest to foist inclusiveness on Carnatic music culture.

Krishna's first salvo? Perform a Carnatic music concert for the masses (Caste, Class and the 'Classical' - FAQs about the Urur Olcott Festival, Chennai: Nityanand Jayaraman; ). Not just any masses but those displaced and sidelined from the natural order by the relentless and thoughtless sweep of urbanization. The Edward Elliot's Beach, popularly called the Besant Nagar beach, located in Besant Nagar, in the South Indian metropolis, Chennai, is also home to an ancient fisherman's village, the Urur Olcott Kuppam. In Tamil, Kuppam means fisherman's village. Existing for ages, entirely honorable, entirely of its place. Swallowed up into the environs of the ever-expanding Chennai city like so much baleen into the whale, not just disemboweled but also degraded by this urbanization process, the change disenfranchises its dwellers and dispossesses them of the aspirational attributes associated with dignity and honor. No longer fishermen. Instead the surrounding middle-class label them slum dwellers. A middle class who denigrate them even as they depend on them for essential daily services that their feudal lifestyle ingrains. Dignity of labor is after all an ever-present absence in feudalism.


Let's understand in his own blistering words why Krishna organized a Carnatic music concert in this fishing village (The city of unheard melodies), 'The etymology for the word “city” leads us to some archaisms. But “city” implies a capitalist-centric, economic magnet. This may be the primary attraction, but it is a far more complex social animal in which the idea of culture plays a central role. In the grammar of economics, the city is a symbol of opportunity and in the poetic phraseology of culture, a symbol of equality. Both perceptions are not just flawed, they are concocted to establish the dominance of a certain class. But these beliefs have driven and continue to drive people to the city.

The word “urban” too must be explored in this context. This gives us a glimpse of the delusion we have created by the idea of the city. The word is derived from the Latin “urbs”, meaning, simply, city. What is “urban” is that which pertains to a city, which by tradition is meant to be civilised, refined, courteous. The adjective “urbane” sums up the essence of the city, as does the Tamil word “nagarikam”, where nagara means city and nagarikam implies being cultured.

But what is this “culture” that we believe exists within the urban space, which is lacking in the village? Is it universal? The moment we explore these questions more words pop up, such as sophistication, class, nuance, elegance and subtlety. These relate as much to the identity of the urban person as to the urban idea of art. One cannot disconnect the two. Cultural aspiration is a far stronger force than we concede. It goes hand-in-glove with economic upward mobility. The control group of any city, which tends to be the middle and upper-middle class, tolerates the rich-uncultured (culture as understood by them), but embraces the rich-cultured.

The city does certain things to people. It closets them in individual sociocultural bubbles. In a way, the city is a habitation of multiple cloisters, where each hardly recognises the existence of the other. In what is said to be a space determined by economics, it is culture-politics that actually rules. The fisherman’s city has no link with the accountant’s, which, in turn, is socially independent from the migrant labourer’s. These people are linked only through the services they provide. We know the services, but not the faces that provide them. The fisherman is unseen, but the fish is needed. This means the fisherman’s culture is irrelevant to me.But we still speak of an “urban culture”, a misnomer that exists only because of the constant hammering down of this idea by the controlling, powerful upper-middle class. To the urban middle class, the slum is a filthy village and hence culturally despicable.

This raises a serious question about art and “spaces”. In most cities in this country, art is compressed within specific spaces. Space is not emptiness; it exists only when it is filled. Here, the people who fill each kind of art space are homogenous and look for homogeneity for retaining its “values”. Certain performing arts moved to the cities in India in the early 20th century and have stayed in confined urban spaces. In due course, villages and towns that were part of the history of these art forms lost their connectivity. Once again, we have to come back to the middle class, since it is its art that moved with it to the cities. These are the arts we refer to as classical. Parallelly, two other things have happened. The other forms of art within the cities, often considered crude by the middle class, live in their own bubbles, yearning for acceptance as “urban”. Village art forms get universally categorised as “folk” and exotic or acceptable for certain occasions, but not “cultured”. We cannot ignore in this sociocultural hierarchy the fact that even those practising “other” art forms in the city or folk forms in the villages aspire to be accepted as cultured.

The greatest tragedy of urbanisation is what it has done to the idea of the village. We have manipulated the village to represent deprivation and poverty. We have presumed that vilage culture is a local phenomenon that has no role in the mainstream narrative. And, ironically, when this very same village-dweller becomes a city person, he is once again pushed to the cultural margins. Hence, it is insulted twice over'.

Profound, provocative and ever thought-provoking, I did say opening salvo, didn't I? Krishna followed this up on June 10, 2015, with an announcement akin to a tsunami in the stiflingly cloistered world of Carnatic music. He was withdrawing his participation from Chennai's fabled December music season. Again, in his own words (How Do You Solve A Problem Like TM Krishna?), 'I am unable to reconcile my musical journey with that of the December Season", he said in a brief note. He found, "The world of Carnatic music is 'socially stifling and narrow'." "We really don't care about the rest of society and don't see that this music must be democratised", he explained.

An ongoing and as-yet unresolved saga that will likely leave its mark in the history books. Single-minded, single-handedly taking on an entire, entrenched and age-old artistic tradition, seeking to re-shape it to more equitable and inclusive mores, who could be more quixotic than T. M. Krishna?

And since it's all to easy to garb oneself in the paltry veil of superiority, let's not forget that the process of hierarchical subjugation Krishna articulates plays itself out the world over. I'm reminded of it every time I visit a grocery store in the US, that the fresh produce on display is the product of practically indentured labor.

Ingeborg Rapoport. Even the Nazis couldn't deprive her of her Ph.D.
A neonatologist, i.e., medical doctor specializing in the new born. In 1938, she wasn't allowed by the Nazis to defend her doctoral thesis. Why? Her mother was Jewish. On Tuesday, 9 June, 2015, at the age of 102, she received her doctorate in neonatology from the University of Hamburg, Germany. 'Syllm-Rapoport stressed in her acceptance speech that she went through all the efforts of getting the degree at her advanced age not for herself, but for all the others who suffered from injustice during the Third Reich, said Kerstin Graupner, a university spokeswoman (Denied by Nazis, world's oldest doctoral student awarded her PhD – aged 102).


Sam Tsemberis, the outsider who solved chronic homelessness in USA
What he's accomplished. 'According to academics and advocates, he’s all but solved chronic homelessness. His research, which commands the support of most scholars, has inspired policies across the nation, as well as in the District. The results have been staggering. Late last month, Utah, the latest laboratory for Tsemberis’ [sic]models, reported it has nearly eradicated chronic homelessness. Phoenix, an earlier test case, eliminated chronic homelessness among veterans. Then New Orleans housed every homeless veteran' (Meet the outsider who accidentally solved chronic homelessness).

How did he do it? Serendipity. A psychologist, doing outreach for the mentally ill in New York city brought him into close proximity with the homeless. He soon realized they were extraordinarily resourceful but infantilized by experts whose process of rehabilitation or what passed for it, i.e., medicate and release, kept them in a vicious cycle of dependency.

'Homeless services once worked like a reward system. Kick an addiction, get a home. Take some medication, get counseling. But Tsemberis’ [sic]model, called “housing first,” said the order was backward. Someone has the best chance of improving if they’re stabilized in a home.

It works like this: First, prioritize the chronically homeless, defined as those with mental or physical disabilities who are homeless for longer than a year or have experienced four episodes within three years. They’re the most difficult homeless to reabsorb into society and rack up the most significant public costs in hospital stays, jail sentences and shelter visits.

Then give them a home, no questions asked. Immediately afterward, provide counseling, a step research shows is the most vital. Give them final say in everything — where they live, what they own, how often they’re counseled'.
From http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/05/06/meet-the-outsider-who-accidentally-solved-chronic-homelessness/

Narayanan Krishnan, succor for the mentally ill homeless in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India.
By all accounts, a young man set on the fast track to material success. While still in his 20s, he was already working as a chef in the five-star Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces in Bangalore, South India. He was short-listed for further training at an exclusive Swiss hotel. Around this time, while visiting his hometown of Madurai, his response to something he saw fits the textbook definition of quixotic. In his own words, 'I saw a very old man, literally eating his own human waste out of hunger. I went to the nearby hotel and asked them what was available. They had idli, which I bought and gave to the old man. Believe me, I had never seen a person eating so fast, ever. As he ate the food, his eyes were filled with tears. Those were the tears of happiness' (Once a rising star, chef now feeds hungry). That was it for Krishnan. He quit his job, his career, and commandeering his mother's kitchen and spending his own money, he started cooking wholesome, nutritious meals and driving around Madurai, feeding the homeless he saw on the streets.

Obviously his parents were dumbstruck to say the least. As the English language newspaper The Hindu reported in 2006, 'By the following morning, Krishnan, who was about to leave for a training programme in Switzerland, had decided to walk away from his future. He quit his job and to the dismay of his parents, he spent the next two months cycling around Madurai and distributing food packets that he purchased from his savings to mentally ill destitutes. "I started by using my mother's kitchen", he recalls. Single-handedly cooking three meals a day for 40 people, packaging and distributing them was no easy task. But Krishnan was determined in the face of his parents' worries about his new found "vocation".But now, they are proud of what he did. Krishnan never stopped providing free food for people but the numbers have grown steadily' (Making a difference).

That early effort has grown into the Helping the Helpless of Madurai, India. The Akshaya home opened on May 9, 2013. ~450 residents. Many, if not most of them, with mental diseases or old or both. Not all roses all the way though for Krishnan and Akshaya.

June 5, 2014, a 23-year old woman resident fled the home and accused she'd been raped (Inmate's rape allegation casts shadow over Akshaya Trust).
Akshaya claims that the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court exonerated the Trust of all allegations on September 12, 2014. While I could not track down that verdict, I found another verdict of the same bench. In this September 18, 2014 decision, responding to a petition filed by the Akshaya Trust itself, the bench instructs the local Madurai police to work with and help the Akshaya trust identify and rescue mentally ill wandering the streets of Madurai (Akshaya Trust vs The Commissioner Of Police on 18 September, 2014), suggesting not only that the Akshaya Trust continues to work to help the mentally ill homeless on the streets of Madurai but that it's expanding its integration with local infrastructure to better fulfill its founder's mandate. Quixotic? What Narayanan Krishnan decided to do is nothing less. And not just behavior, it's become his way of life.

Clifford Oluoch, a Kenyan school teacher on a quixotic quest to feed homeless children in Nairobi, Kenya
In May 2015, BBC World News reported about Clifford Oluoch in Nairobi, Kenya. A primary school teacher by day, since February 2015, he spends his evenings feeding homeless street children (Feeding Kenya's street kids: An evening with Nairobi's 'Messiah' - BBC News). Roping in his family to help in his quixotic venture, he spends his salary on bread and butter, his family helps make the sandwiches, and he spends about 3 hours every evening feeding homeless children.

As the BBC reports, 'Earlier that evening, the teacher, his wife Benedette and their 13-year old daughter had buttered 30 loaves of bread. This type of meal costs about 2,000 Kenyan shillings ($22; £14) a day.
For months he has been splitting his salary between his wife and two children and 60 street children and says he was beginning to feel the pinch.
Thankfully word is slowly started to spread in his community - this month he got a donor for bread.
He says he can now use that money to see to other needs such as transporting someone to hospital, or helping some of the homeless women set up fruit stalls.
Still, this is an expensive project to maintain on a teacher's salary, not to mention the time away from his family - up to three hours every evening.
So why does he do it?
"My wife and I feel strongly about helping other people," he says.
"We know what is it to grow up having nothing. We know how difficult life is when you have no-one. This is making a difference, that makes all of it worth it," Benedette told me earlier'.
Doesn't Clifford Oluoch's behavior fit the textbook definition of quixotic?

The response of some elderly Japanese to the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown was pure idealism.
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. March 2011. Even as we were transfixed by the inexorably unfolding disaster of a post-tsunami nuclear reactor meltdown, a group of >200 pensioners calling themselves the 'Skilled Veterans Corps' volunteered for damage control work in the stricken nuclear power plant. Retired engineers and other professionals over the age of 60, their spokesman Yasuteru Yamada, told the BBC, 'they should be facing the dangers of radiation, not the young' (Japan nuclear crisis: Pensioners seek work at Fukushima - BBC News).

'Weeks after the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck, he and Nobuhiro Shiotani, a childhood friend who is also an engineer, formed the Skilled Veterans Corps in early April. They sent out thousands of e-mails and letters, and even set up a Twitter account. On his blog, Page on bouhatsusoshi.jp, Mr. Yamada called on people over age 60 who have “the physical strength and experience to bear the burden of this front-line work.”

The response was instant. About 400 people have volunteered, including a singer, a cook and an 82-year-old man. Some 1,200 others have offered support, while donations have topped 4.3 million yen, or $54,000. His blog has been translated into 12 languages.

Although Mr. Yamada, a soft-spoken cancer survivor, started with a simple goal, he has triggered a much wider debate about the role of the elderly in Japan, the meaning of volunteerism and the growing reality that the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which owns the reactors, will face an increasingly difficult time recruiting workers' (Seniors Volunteer at Japan’s Crippled Daiichi Nuclear Plant).
From Pensioners to Aid Nuclear Plant Clean-Up on Worker Shortage

The two physically disabled Chinese who taught their neighbors to embrace the better angels in themselves.
Jia Wenqi, 53, is a double-arm amputee from high voltage shock after touching an unprotected electric cable at the age of 3. Jia Haixia, 54, is blind. Born blind in his left eye, a factory accident in his right eye in 2000 rendered him totally blind.

For 13 years, they've planted as many trees as possible on an 8-hectare plot they lease from the government. Their aim? To prevent flooding in their village. Doing so they prevailed over the cynical apathy of their neighbors who now choose to help them. As the BBC reports, 'When they began working together on the project, other villagers were cynical, Haixia explains. "They didn't believe what we were doing was possible," he says, "the whole riverbank had been bare for years and there were hardly any trees." But after a few years the trees grew, the area became greener and the villagers changed their attitude choosing now to assist the two men...'They help us to fix our tools, water the trees and trim the weeds," Haixia says. They even bought us saplings to plant.' (The disabled men who act as each other's arms and eyes - BBC News).
From The disabled men who act as each other's arms and eyes - BBC News.

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-endearing-examples-of-quixotic-behaviour-in-the-modern-world/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala


Sunday, January 10, 2016

Who are some geniuses or remarkable people who lived or still live a simple life, with no interest in glory or money?


In my opinion, the most water-tight case could be made only for those who pursued their calling all their life despite hardships and setbacks, and were recognized only in posterity as geniuses or remarkable people. There is also perhaps an insurmountable obstacle to accuracy. History being primarily a record of the dominant, records of men and of colonizers outweigh those of women and of the colonized, and the contributions of many of the latter are either irretrievably lost or awaiting rediscovery by careful and discerning historians.

Mine is obviously not an exhaustive list by any means, and many on it are/were recognized in their lifetime. And since I'm originally from India, I'm more familiar with Indians.

Genius

  • John Clare. 19th century English farm laborer. Limited formal education. While he had some limited recognition in his lifetime, spent his last decades institutionalized. Nature poet whose genius is widely recognized only since 1980. Among the greatest Nature poets ever in the English language.
  • Franz Kafka. Arguably the greatest writer of the 20th century, discovered by the world years after his death, especially since it took years for his works to be translated into the more widespread English. By all accounts, never interested in glory or money, quite unlike his friend and literary executor Max Brod.
  • Srinivasa Ramanujan. Among the greatest of mathematicians. Dead by 32. By all accounts, lived a spartan life devoted to mathematics, uninterested in glory or money.
  • Nek Chand. One of the greatest self-taught artists of the 20th century. For years, using discarded waste materials procured from demolition sites, worked surreptitiously at night in the city of Chandigarh to single-handedly create a vast sculpture garden, Rock Garden of Chandigarh. Unique artistic vision.
Remarkable people
  • Umm Abdu. A woman doctor who chooses to stay back to save lives in Aleppo, Syria, even after she lost her son and husband in the ongoing civil war.
    ‘Hell is never far away’ - female medic risking her life for Aleppo
  • Baba Amte. Indian social activist. Gandhian. Born into affluence yet gave it up to live a spartan life dedicated to the rehabilitation of the marginalized like lepers, people that mainstream society shuns.
  • Vasili Arkhipov and Stanislav Petrov who, in two separate incidents during the cold war, made quiet heroic decisions at work that historians now suggest may have prevented nuclear war.
  • Sunderlal Bahuguna. Environmentalist. Pioneer of the environmental movement in India. Originator of the 'Chipko' (sticking to trees) movement in Northern India in 1973. Lives a spartan Gandhian life till date.
  • Nokutela Dube. The pioneer woman the world forgot. The pioneering woman the world forgot - BBC News. Now rightfully recognized as one of the builders of modern South Africa. Among her many accomplishments, first Black South African to start a school. The Ohlange High School continues to educate secondary school students even today.
  • Firefighters the world over. Choose to run into fires to save lives when the rest of us are running the other way.
  • Alice Herz-Sommer. Subject of the documentary The Lady in Number 6. Holocaust survivor. Survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp. When she died in 2014 at the age of 110, she was the world's oldest known Holocaust survivor. Concert quality pianist who said music saved her life. Practiced playing the piano everyday for the rest of her life. Taught music lessons. Another remarkable quality? Exquisite grace in forgiving what is unforgivable for many if not most of us.
  • Father Bernard Kinvi, Catholic priest in the small town of Bossemptele in the Central African Republic. Saved at least 1000 muslims from certain death in the civil war that broke out in 2013.
    Father Bernard Kinvi, Central African Republic
    Act of faith: the Catholic priest who puts his life on the line to save Muslims in Central African Republic
  • Jineth Bedoya Lima. Colombian journalist. Kidnapped not once but twice. Tortured and raped by paramilitary forces, a woman of astounding, even incomprehensible resilience. Now she works to make governments around the world confront the fact that armed conflicts make violence against women inevitable and also a lucrative business opportunity for instigators and profiteers alike.
    Colombian reporter Jineth Bedoya Lima gives voice to abused women
  • Médecins Sans Frontières. Could some be in it for the glory? Maybe. Majority provide emergency health care in places where civilization itself has evaporated.
  • The  extraordinary Mozambique women who clear landmines, deadly relics of the country's many strifes, particularly the civil war that lasted from  1977 to 1992. Clearing Land Mines Becomes Women's Work in Mozambique and Beyond
  • José Mujica. President of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015. Donated most of his salary while continuing to live frugally on his farm even as the President. Declared personal wealth for 2010? $1800, the price of his 2nd hand VW beetle.
  • Mgcineni Noki, the Man in the Green Blanket. When miners in the South African Marikana platinum mine went on strike in 2012, Mgcineni Noki emerged as a leader from among the crowd. Police heavy-handedness led to the death of 34 miners and he died trying to negotiate a peaceful agreement between management and workers.
    Marikana massacre: the untold story of the strike leader who died for workers’ rights | Nick Davies
  • Jadav Payeng. Forest man of India. Single-handedly planted a forest in the Majuli island in the Brahmaputra river. A forest larger than New York's Central Park, it remained undiscovered until 2008, almost three decades after Payeng started his solo quixotic quest in 1979.
  • Ronald Read. Vermont, USA, gas station attendant. When he died aged 92 in June 2014, it was discovered he had stock holdings and property valued at $8 million, all of which he willed to his local hospital and library. Frugal benefactor leaves millions to Brattleboro Memorial Hospital and Brooks Memorial Library
    The remarkable life and lessons of the $8 million janitor
  • Search and rescue workers the world over. Provide aid, relief and succor during earthquakes, famines, floods, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters, going into places that lack normalcy, safety and security, places that the rest of us flee.
  • Stunt actors in the entertainment industry. Take all the risk. Get none of the glory.
  • Germaine Tillion. Groundbreaking French anthropologist. Holocaust survivor. Wrote an unflinching account of her time in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Living to the age of 100, she spent her life giving voice to the disenfranchised.
  • Whistleblower the world over bring injustices, crimes and horrors to light at great risk to their livelihood and even their lives, and often get killed for their audacity to challenge the status quo. Usually the costs are so high that few are likely to do it for any purported glory or money.



https://www.quora.com/Who-are-some-geniuses-or-remarkable-people-who-lived-or-still-live-a-simple-life-with-no-interest-in-glory-or-money/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala


Sunday, January 3, 2016

How can a physicist, mathematician, or computational scientist get involved with solving world hunger?


Why is there world hunger in the first place? I ask in good faith, not sarcastically. Globally we produce so much food, there shouldn't be. So why? A major reason is we throw away altogether obscene amounts of food. Researching this answer led me to conclude that to solve world hunger, we need to stem our current global tidal wave of food wastage. Rather than contributions from specific specializations such as physics, mathematics or computer science, the scale of the problem suggests we need two things,

  • Massive global government level action to curb pre-consumption food wastage.
  • Profound changes in consumer culture that needs to also be part of school curricula to curb consumer food wastage.

My information gathering started with a throwaway statement in a news article (1) about a unique Danish restaurant that uses food that's on the verge of being thrown out by stores and producers. It quoted the restaurant founder who said, 'The Danes are world leaders in throwing out food'.

Global Food Wastage by the Numbers
So of course I had to find out just how much food Danes throw out.
  • The Danish government estimates, 'A Danish family throws out 105 kilos of edible food every year' (2).
  • The Swiss? The Swiss government estimates 'a third of all Swiss trash is food' (3).
  • The Swedish government (4; see figure below) is even more helpful. The Swedish EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) provides this table of tonnage of food waste that literally stuns by its magnitude:

I decided to look at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)'s statistics on global food wastage. Maybe I shouldn't have. The sheer scale almost gave me heart palpitations. Here in charts (from the FAO; see figure below) is a global horror story of billions of tons of edible food we callously, thoughtlessly and unforgivably throw away even as hundreds of millions among us starve.
  • Global pre-consumption loss:
    • Ranges from a low of ~>100kg/year/person to a high of ~200 kg/year/person.
    • This is massive pre-consumption loss.
    • Problem is pre-consumption loss is not in the individual's hands.
    • Rather government action is necessary to curb it.
  • Global consumer waste: Ranges from as low as ~<10 to as high as 120 kg/year/person. 
    • Sub-Saharan Africa, South & SE Asia consumers are most frugal.
    • Wealthier the country, higher the consumption loss.
    • Since hundreds of millions among us starve, it means the non-starving amongst us are wasting even more food.
From 5

  • Global food production: ~4 Billion tonnes/year (5, 6).
  • Global food production loss: ~1.3 to 2 Billion tonnes per year (~33 to 50%; see figure below from 7).
  • Obscene? Grotesque? Sheer horror? Language seems inadequate to describe our scale of food wastage.


Obstacles to Reducing Food Wastage?
  • Problem is different parts of the world waste food disproportionately at different stages in the farm-to-table cycle (see figure below from 7).
  • Africa, Latin America and Asia:
    • Most waste is the farmer-producer end, i.e., production, post-harvest, processing and distribution (8, 9). Why?
    • Inefficient harvesting.
    • Poor storage and transport infrastructure.
    • So loss due to damage, molds, rodents, spillage.
    • For example, rice loss ranges from 37% (5) to 80% (10). Approx. 180 million tonnes annually (10).
    • This represents waste of not just food but also energy, land and water.
    • For example, ~550 billion cubic meters of water is wasted annually in growing crops that never reach the consumer (10).
  • Proportion of wastage increases up the distribution chain with improvement in the standard of development.
    • For example, in transition countries like India and former Soviet Union countries, huge improvements at farm level haven't percolated up to cold-storage and food processing facilities.
  • OTOH, current industrialized countries emphasize chilling and freezing over canning and drying.
    • With such systems in place, a greater proportion of food reaches consumers than can be consumed by them.
    • Combined with consumerism and marketing, this leads to massive consumer wastage (8, 9).
    • For example, major buyers reject edible fruit and vegetables at the farm based on physical appearance.
    • Customers are aggressively targeted to buy more than they can consume.
    • Maintaining a cold chain is key. Much more demanding from an engineering standpoint. Also mandates much more expensive investment by less industrialized countries.
    • Since industrialized nations have perfected food production and distribution systems that systematically engender massive consumer wastage, is it sensible or even ethical for wannabe nations to mimic them?

Possible Solutions?
  • First, we need widespread awareness of the sheer massive scale of global food wastage.
  • Scale is so colossal, changes at the individual level are likely to be inconsequential.
  • We need to start paying for the real cost of food, at every stage in the chain.
  • We need to be weaned away from the marketing and consumer culture that's emerged around food since WW II.
  • Requires change not just among consumers but also among wholesalers and retailers.
  • Governments need to lead the way, with sticks if necessary.
  • For example, recently the French government passed a law mandating supermarkets to donate unsold food to charities or for animal food. They will no longer be allowed to throw it away (11). If only this could happen in the US! The food that American grocery stores throw away on a daily basis is nothing short of criminal.
  • Onus is on each and every one of us to educate ourselves and our children on the origin of our food.
  • For example, maybe households could be fined based on the amount of excess food waste they discard in the municipal trash? Municipalities would have to arrive at a consensus on what's excess of course. Some cities in the US have a primitive version of such a system already in place where they charge residents based on the amount of garbage they generate (12). 
  • Revenue generated from producer- and citizen-sourced food wastage fines could be used to set up many more food banks for the marginalized, poor, needy and homeless. Redistribution not of wealth but of much needed, life sustaining food. Maybe that won't be such a political hot potato?

Bibliography
  1. Non-perishable notion
  2. A Danish family throws out 105 kilos of edible food every year
  3. Swiss throwing away more food - SWI swissinfo.ch
  4. Page on www.naturvardsverket.se
  5. Page on fao.org
  6. Page on siwi.org
  7. Produced but never eaten:  a visual guide to food waste
  8. Page on fabians.org.uk
  9. Page on fao.org
  10. Page on imeche.org
  11. France to force big supermarkets to give unsold food to charities
  12. The Trash Man Is Watching You


https://www.quora.com/How-can-a-physicist-mathematician-or-computational-scientist-get-involved-with-solving-world-hunger/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala