Quote of the Day

The Great Depression was originally thought to be due to the inherent instability of capitalism. Later Friedman and Schwartz blamed it on a big drop in M2. Their view is now more popular, because it has more appealing policy implications. It’s a lot easier to prevent M2 from falling, than to repair the inherent instability of capitalism. Where there are simple policy implications, a failure to do those policies eventually becomes seen as the “cause” of the problem, even if at a deeper philosophical level “cause” is one of those slippery terms that can never be pinned down.

- Scott Sumner

Please Respect Public Administration

Francis Fukuyama starts blogging again and here comes the first best post of the year

As I’ve gotten older, however, I’ve come to realize that the emphasis put on public policy is mistaken, and that what we should be focusing on and teaching is basic public administration.

There, I’ve said it. Uttering the words “public administration” usually puts people into an instant stupor, or else sends them scrambling to check for messages on their iPhones. But in fact, the biggest problems we face in contemporary governance are often not related to what the government should do, but rather how to actually get the existing machinery to implement a policy that everyone can agree upon.

Microphone Turns Any Surface into Touch Interface

"Through gesture recognition techniques we detect different kind of fingers-touch and associate them with different sounds. In the video we used two different audio synthesis techniques:
- physic modelling, which consists in generating the sound by simulating physical laws;
- concatenative synthesis (audio mosaicing), in which the sound of the contact microphone is associated with its closest frame present in a sound database."

- More Here

Quote of the Day

"To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge."

- Confucius

Brilliant Critique Of Bhagavad Gita - 2

Krishna interprets this metaphysics to support a tangible objective, namely, persuading Arjuna to fight. Krishna’s interpretation is not the only possible one, let alone the right one. Indeed, he belongs in the long line of shrewd characters who have bent metaphysics to their own ends. For instance, consider this interpretation: Krishna tells Arjuna that his sorrow is misguided. Those who grasp the true nature of reality, he says, ‘grieve neither for the living nor for the dead. There has never been a time when you and I and the kings gathered here have not existed, nor will there be a time when they will cease to exist. … The body is mortal, but he who dwells in the body is immortal and immeasurable. Therefore, Arjuna, fight in this battle.’ It is out of ignorance of the true nature of reality, he says, that we call one man a slayer, another man slain. ‘There is neither slayer nor slain. You were never born; you will never die.’ Krishna’s sleight-of-hand here lies in equating the people we care about with their atmans, and since atman is immortal, it matters not if their bodies are destroyed. ‘There could hardly be a better example of forked-tongue speciousness,’ wrote P. Lal (1929-2010), professor of literature and Indian Studies and translator of the entire Mahabharata into English, in the introduction to his translation of the Gita (1965).

Arjuna is still not sold, so Krishna presses on. O Arjuna, he says, ‘even if you believe the Self to be subject to birth and death, you should not grieve. Death is inevitable for the living … you should not sorrow.’ Every creature is unmanifested at first, is then manifested, and in time, is unmanifested again, so ‘what is there to lament in this?’ Krishna’s point is that if Arjuna’s arrow is what ‘unmanifests’ his uncle from earthly life, there is nothing wrong in it because it’s all part of a cyclical process. Ambedkar called this line of reasoning ‘an unheard of defense of murder’, adding that if Krishna was a lawyer today and pleaded such a defense for a client, there is ‘not the slightest doubt that he would be sent to the lunatic asylum’.

Near the end of the Gita, Krishna ominously warns Arjuna: ‘If you egotistically say, "I will not fight this battle," your resolve will be useless; your own nature will drive you into it.’ Then almost immediately, he begins his closing remarks and makes a seemingly expansive gesture, ‘I give you these precious words of wisdom; reflect on them and then do as you choose.’ It’s the perfect opening to let Arjuna, without giving him a real choice, feel as if he is making his own decision. Arjuna promptly succumbs, a sad ending to the Gita. ‘You have dispelled my doubts and delusions and I understand through your grace,’ Arjuna says. ‘My faith is firm now, and I will do your will.’ At the end of the Mahabharata, nearly everyone on both sides is killed. The epic, writes Sen, ‘ends largely as a tragedy, with a lamentation about death and carnage, and there is anguish and grief ... It is hard not to see in this something of a vindication of Arjuna’s profound doubts.’

- More Here

Quote of the Day

"The road to wisdom? — Well, it's plain 
and simple to express: 
Err 
and err 
and err again 
but less 
and less 
and less."

- Piet Hein

Knocking on Heaven's Door - Lisa Randall

Lisa Randal on her new book, Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World

Tavis: Let me ask another broad question, then I’ll come back inside the book with more specificity. How concerned are you, to the extent you’re concerned at all, that we are losing ground in our country on science in that the data seem to suggest that our students are not being drawn like a magnet to math and science, and what do you make of all that?

Randall: I think it’s definitely an important issue and it’s particularly an issue with engineering, I believe. I still see some great students. But there’s something even more general that worries me, which is just I think we’re losing a respect for science and just rational thinking and numbers, and just the scientific method, and you see that not just in science, but you see that in policy debates. The fact that people are almost embarrassed to talk about scientific measurements or scientific facts, and I think that’s a greater danger for our country. I think, of course, valuing science and scientific thinking is also important, and I’m glad you bring that up. It’s definitely true.
But I think that we still have many exceptional students in this country who will do great things in science. It is true not all of them will go into science, and probably at a lower rate than before, and that’s definitely something we want to pay attention to, and we want to pay attention to investing in science, investing in education, investing in infrastructure. But just more generally, people should stop being afraid of thinking in a scientific, rational manner. 

Watch Physicist Lisa Randall on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

Quote of the Day

My book is about the decline of violence, not a putative increase in virtue. I don’t think the chickens (or the slaves) care about whether their better treatment was motivated by an altruism that is pure in the eyes of God or other moralistic judges, as long as they suffer less. And if we set up institutions that allow people to be less cruel and destructive as they pursue their interests, that is a sign of progress–God help us if every advance in human welfare depended on Christ-like levels of moral purity.

Regarding your answer of whether we are “better humans,” again, that is not my question, if you’re asking a moral question. If you’re asking the biological question of whether our genomes have changed in a way that makes our nonviolent motives more powerful, I consider this question in chapter 9, but end up rejecting it. So yes, we need to teach it to each new generation so our progress doesn’t go away–that is why education, and socialization, are important.

- The Better Angles of Our Nature, Steven Pinker

Quote of the Day

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment;
that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

- Walden, Henry David Thoreau

Happy 2012!!