Thinking Like a Human

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

Henry David Thoreau

Observe the people around you or apply these questions to yourself. Are they/you perfect? Are they/you happy with the way they/you look? Do you think their/your race is better than others? Or, do they/you think their/your community is better than others’?

Well, when I pose these questions directly at you, I am sure your responses would be rationale. However, when answering for others, your responses will be more populist. That is:

• Most people feel that they are better than others (close to perfect), hence continue to gripe about others’ decisions, appearance, clothing, or whatever they want to
• Most people are not happy with their appearance. They may all wish to have looks like Tom Cruise or Marilyn Monroe, or whichever externally appealing individual they may know
• Majority trust people from their own, race, community, or whatever link that originates from made-up and geographically co-incidental origins. Most races, communities, and religions in the world are a result of geographic incidences – thanks to the mother nature

If you are different enough to not comply with any of the three above points, tell me how do you achieve this.

On Human Nature and Beauty

We all are similar in most sense, but it is an inconvenient truth.

• If you don’t like a person’s behavior in office, you go straight to your close associate and gripe. Even the person about whom you gripe, may moan your behavior with others.
• If you are given a chance to see questions that will appear in your interview test, you are very likely to take a peep.

I can list many more instances wherein I could predict your behavior. However, such as we are, we believe we are different and moan about almost every aspect of our life; or, as a matter of fact – we gripe as long as we live.

When we decide our initial level of trust in another individual, here is the order in which we (human) are likely to set our preferences:

1. Same color
2. Same religion
3. Same community
4. Same region
5. Same country

You may feel the order is wrong or discard the list as it gives a very critical scrutiny of the human nature. But, I bet it is very near to the truth.

You may differ on the order, but just sit back and do some soul searching – were you ever new to a place and were relieved to meet a person from your place of origin, religion, community, or race? We all seem to use these points, may be unconsciously, to set initial level of trust in new people we meet.

Let’s play a game in which you are allowed to keep the right answer to yourself and there are no prizes to be won (sorry to take out an incentive before the game starts.) Bonus: There are no buttons to click .

Question: If you win an Astin Martin in some stupid game show and are given a model that happens to be black, will you return it? Note that you cannot change the car color.

1. a. Yes
2. b. No

Now, you don’t need to give me any prize to guess your answer, which is – b.

Why didn’t the color influence your decision?

I guess it was because: how the hell can the color of an Aston Martin matter? An Aston Martin is an Astan Martin. Its mechanics, speed, looks, everything are a killer.  The difference between the engine, injection, piston, or whatever crap that goes inside all Aston Martins is basically – ZERO. So how can color matter? Darn the color. What say?

Yeah, you are right. Darn the color for a lifeless output of mechanics, which is produced and sold at a price that can support an entire city/town/village, which is facing serious humanitarian crisis like famine or the recent quake in Haiti.

Why does the color matter so much when it relates to human? We human, despite differences in skin appearance, are same from the inside. I am sure there is no need to get into the bio-demographic segmentation of humanity. The internal machinery that operates inside us is bloody similar. Just like an Aston Martin, even our machinery expires and experiences change in appearance with age.

An Aston Martin may satisfy the self esteem need of an individual, but is it worth the value of human lives – whose numbers may go in billions? Refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to read about self esteem needs.

Consider us, human. Are we really beautiful? We look at a spider, toad, lizard, or a cockroach and may exclaim – YUCK.

Just for a moment imagine that these wonderful creatures can speak and think. Will they not exclaim – yuck or their version of DEMON on seeing us? If they make such statements, they are justified as most of human race is slowly turning filthy, destructive, and thoughtless and is living like creatures with no brains. We just follow what others do in the name of fashion, trend, or blindly follow marketing gimmicks.

Just another uncomfortable fact – we hold and emit more poo than any of these creatures may in their lives. So, who is filthier in real sense?

I am sure many animals call us DEMONS in their own mode of communication. Thankfully we have not yet decrypted their communication. Otherwise, poor fellows would have been under more human threat as they could have been caught calling names and curses. And that too cursing the most brainy and beautiful, yet destructive and divided, race of living thing on the plant.:-)

It is in human nature to show anything that originates from a different place to be asymmetric and hence ugly. For example, all alien artworks are slimy. We unconsciously see beauty comparatively. And, we compare it with ourselves, our race, community, country, religion, or whatever we can think of. Hardly any views are neutral.

One refreshing piece of art that deviates from the stereotype is the movie: Monster Inc. The movie starts off with a typical portrayal of monsters, which is they are scary and ugly. However, the movie ends with the message that love and happiness are very powerful and a living object that looks different from a particular race is also capable of making people smile.

Dark is beautiful, small noses look cute, small eyes are a killer, small lips are pretty, brown is the bridge between white and black, and white glows when all fades. They are all beautiful in every sense. Don’t these lines justify the beauty of all ‘skin’ races? Then why the differences when logic easily advocates unity and love? Why does a market exist for fairness and other crappy creams?

On More Divisions – A case of Indian Unity/Diversity

The easiest way to get close to someone is to moan about an individual who, coincidentally, may be hated by you and the person with whom you talk. In other words, you can easily get close to someone by griping about an individual who is an object of your common hatred. You will have exceptions when an individual may be against back-biting against others. However, in most cases, you will succeed. In addition, while assessing people, we tend to overlook their positive behavior and concentrate on their shortfalls. This tendency to overlook the positive, or nice behavior, is one of the most exploited and vulnerable human weaknesses.

As I said before, unconsciously, we tend to let our perspectives be driven by a person’s ethnicity, religion, or race. So, will this be left unexploited when someone wants you on their side? Surely not. From politicians and terrorists to marketers, all look to exploit this weakness at a grand level, and your friends or associates at a lower level. Your friends or associates’ influence may cause you to hate an individual or community, but even their rationale will be, in some way, inspired from a leader – the leader may be a politician, goon, terror marketer, or some historic personality.

For example, let’s consider the differences in the Indian Social setup. The traditional setup of the Indian society encouraged division of work based on a person’s family and sect.  The society was divided into three main sections:

1. Kshatriyas, rulers entrusted with the responsibility to govern the society
2. Bramhins, responsible to oversee the religious rituals and worshiping
3. Shudras, maintain hygiene and maintenance of the environment

The aim of such a system was to let the society function smoothly. With all due respect to the creators of the system and without doubting their intentions, I opine that they overlooked the human weakness to look down on others. I hope that the creators had learned Edward De Bono’s six thinking hats, or psychology, so that they could have used the hats to analyze the, possible, negative impacts of the system. J But unfortunately, they didn’t have such scientific tools of decision making. Everything was driven by gut, myth, and the decision makers’ will to safeguard themselves and their community. Consequently, we had the Shudra being oppressed by the Bramhins and Kshatriyas for centuries.

Refer to the Human Map below. It depicts the segregation of the Indian society into innumerable divisions. It may be humanly and timely impossible for a working class person like me to give a detailed map of differences. However, the image below surely gives a glimpse at the microscopic level of the way our society is divided. If you think this map is cluttered, just imagine the mess in a diagram that maps the  world’s communities and races?

The marketers and politicos exploit the human tendency to focus on the differences and cons of other communities or races. As you may  perceive from the diagram, they have innumerable target points to divide us and benefit from our weakness.

There may be innumerable vulnerable points, but the solitary and most powerful unifying theme – humanity.

The first religion we should follow and preach is humanity. All religions are derived from humanity. However, over the years, they may have been tweaked by few people for their self interest.  There have been true prophets of religions.

However, few may have been corrupt. It is these corrupt individuals who have tweaked religions to serve their self interest. So, will it not make sense to practice humanity rather than follow someone else’s word? I don’t advocate dropping your present practices. But, I do advocate critically reviewing them and following only those that are in sync with nature, humanity, and betterment of the world. For instance, it is a Hindu practice to disperse holy stuff, used in worship, in water. I have stopped my family from doing it as this practice pollutes water. The most recent examples of tweaking religion and race are terrorism, reservation in various organizations or institutions, etc. So, like you do in money matters, use your grey matter and conscience.

Never say no to your conscience. It always shows you the right path. You just need to wait, take a deep breath, smile, and listen…

Disclaimer: The post does not aim to demean any religion, race, or community. My apologies if it does and do let me know if you feel that any part of the post demeans any sect.

Tick Tick Tech Tech: Gadgetoholism

Sameer is a software engineer and works with a top IT Company. Like most of his friends, he is a gadget freak and believes that he cannot live without his gadgets. His latest collection of gadgets includes a 32-GB iPod Touch, a 3G Nokia phone, Xbox 360, and a Sony Vaio laptop. He surely owns a collection to envy of. Well, you name the gadget and he will know it about them for sure. He has an eye on the market for the latest gadgets and all his savings go into acquiring them.

Gadgets and Sameer

And Internet, he just can’t live without it. He is very active socially, in a virtual sense, as he averages an impressive 6-8 Facebook status updates and tweets every hour. Phew!!! That’s what you call being connected, isn’t it?

On the surface, it may seem that Sameer has fun with gadgets and must be happy with his life and work. However, on second thoughts, his happiness is questionable. He may have brief highs (as in while smoking) when using his gadgets, but other aspects of his life have taken a thrashing due to his enduring love for gadgets. In simple terms, he is addicted to his gadgets. Such an addiction is termed as gadgetoholism (or I’ll prefer to name it as gadgetoholism).

As it happens with all forms of addictions, you get momentary highs (while using a substance or displaying a behavior) and then a lull, which is accompanied by an anxiety to get back to the source of pleasure. So, in case of gadgets, you may feel happy while you are playing around with your new  iPhone, but feel anxious when you have to stay offline due to work at office. Consequently, your focus is not on your work, but on when can you get rid of the work and get back to your gadget.

Addiction is accompanied by the presence of deviant behaviors, which in case of gadget and technology addiction include:

• Displaying anxious behavior  when:
  • You forget a gadget while going somewhere
  • You have Internet outages
  • Your gadget stops functioning
  • Your gadget seems outdated when compared to the latest market offerings
  • You have to stay disconnected due to urgent deadlines at work
• Lacking non-virtual social interactions
• Staying indoors
• No exercising or outdoor activity
• Displaying irate behavior when disturbed in the middle of a game or during an intense virtual activity
• Using new devices briefly and then tossing them aside
• Buying the latest gizmos to be the first person on the block, office, class, or neighborhood to own them

Well, the list goes on and on and on…

The real danger with gadgetoholism lies in the fact that it is not an obvious addiction and its ill effects are not as popular as ill effects of smoking or alcoholism.

What you miss the most due to gadgetoholism is your keenness to observe and enjoy the little things like the sunset, meeting friends personally, or thinking while you travel. For example, in the present day-and-age, you may be working 60 hours a week and travel 12 hours to and from work. Now, if you own a media player, you are more likely to turn it on to enjoy music or some movie on-the-move. Such behavior may steal your time that you could have utilized to think over some decisions in life or pursue some hobby.

In addition, most gadgets are not sold at the price of groceries. Although marketers and advertisers may want you to believe that gadgets are easy-to-own with their EMI schemes.

At the initial stage of gadgetoholism, you may start to spend time walking around the stores that sell electronic goods and carefully examine every gadget in the store. The gadgets may include cell phones, laptops, net tops, or LCD TVs. Free-to-roam stores let you experience the latest gadgets without any restrictions. This manner of selling is new to the Indian market. Traditionally, Indian electronic purchases were made at small electronic stores operating on a small scale and low inventory. However, the advent of, experential, electronic retail chains like Croma, Next, and Vijay Sales have led to an increase in the sale of gadgets and gizmos.

When you put in all efforts to get an expensive device, you are demonstrating a behavior that is comparable to gambling. Such an obsessive wish to buy technical novelties may lead to family conflicts or financial problems. For example, your wife or mother may not see the sense in buying a new 42-inch LED TV when your 29-inch CRT TV is functioning fine. They would prefer to use the money to buy new clothes or go on a family holiday. However, you may be blinded by the latest gizmo and get it. Such behavior may not be uncommon.

One additional point that you should consider before buying an expensive gizmo is its value depreciation. For example, I purchased my home PC (it has a 2.2 GHz Pentium IV processor) for approximately 24k, in 2005. Now, when I went back to my dealer to check its resale value, he could offer me only 5k. Phew!!! That is approximately 20% depreciation per year. Owning a PC was a need for my education so I have a rationale for investing in it. However, let us consider purchasing a luxury-driven decision to purchase the latest 42-inch LED TV for approximately 1,00,000 Rs. If you have enough money to spare, then this decision may make sense. However, if you go beyond your financial ability to make this purchase and could have met your entertainment needs with a 15k slim 29-inch traditional TV set, then you are sowing the seeds of levying a check on your monthly spending. In addition, you may have a great opportunity cost (Opportunity Cost is the value of a good or service in terms of what had to be sacrificed in order to obtain that item.).

For example, if you purchase a 15k TV set, you save 85k that you would have spent on buying the new LED TV. You can invest this money in other low-risk financial instruments and be better off financially. However, if you buy the LED TV, its value in the next five years (assuming 20% depreciation per year) ends up being ZERO Rs. Now consider the 85k that you will save if you buy the traditional TV Set. Rupees 85k invested in a five-year term deposit, offering 8.5% p.a. return rate, will give you a surplus of approximately 36k. That is, you will have approximately 1,11,000 Rs at the end of the five-year investment term. Compare this value appreciation with the value depreciation of your fixed asset: LED TV. What makes you economically better off? Well, I leave the decision to you.

Closing Points

The latest thing on Internet is virtual life, virtual farming, virtual gaming, or virtual dating. You name a thing, and you can have it virtually. However, all of them may be substitutes and aren’t substitutes the second best thing? So, why plant hundreds of trees in Farmville and not even a single tree in real life? Or, why not play a real game of Cricket (to also aid your fitness) as against playing a virtual one?

A virtual life can never replace real life. You are not Neo from Matrix to live two lives. To avoid the addiction, make it a point to keep away from your gadgets at times, intentionally.

As I end this blog, I recall some instances from a couple of movies. First is from the movie: The Demolition Man, starring: Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock. Anyone who has seen the movie will recall the scene in which the following dialogues were said:

Lenina Huxley: I was wondering if you would like to have sex?
John Spartan: [surprised] Here? With you? Now?
Lenina Huxley: [nervously, nodding] Mm-hmm.
John Spartan: Oh yeah. [They put on the head phones and start hearing &^%$*$^& sounds. Stallone, John Spartan, gets frustrated])

---

[after futuristic, contact-free "sex"]
John Spartan: Look, Huxley, why don’t we just do it the old-fashioned way?
Lenina Huxley: [stands up, shocked] Eeewww, disgusting! You mean… *fluid transfer*?

The next instance is from Die Hard 4, starring Bruce Willis. In one of the scenes, Thomas, the hacker whom Bruce Willis (John McClane in the movie) saves, says the following quote:

Thomas Gabriel: [about McClane] You’re a Timex watch in a digital age.

It’s your preference whether you want to be a Timex watch in a digital age or a combo-watch that has analog and digital dials. I prefer the latter to enjoy a bit of both. In addition, it will be a height of stupidity or insanity if the situation from the Demolition Man is replicated in the real world.

Do Choices Make us Happier?

Happiness has been an ever-elusive term. As a result, there have been several theories around hapiness. All cultures across the world over ages have  given several theories in an attempt to determine what happiness is and how we can be happy? However, no one has ever been able to define what is happiness? A new idea emerging in the modern world is: choices make us happier. More choices we have, the greater freedom they will lead to; and, greater freedom will lead to happiness.

However, recent researches have revealed that this theory is not necessarily 100% true. A study worth mentioning in this regard is the study conducted by an eminent psycologist: Daniel Gilbert.

Daniel Gilbert conducted an experiment at Havard University to gauge whether more choices make us happy or we are better off with lesser choices. His experiment included two samples of students:

1. Fist sample included participants who were asked to take two photographs as a part of a photography project and then submit one photo to the university. They were allowed to keep the photo that they liked more. In addition, they were allowed to swap the photographs for two two days if they felt they liked the initially submitted photos.
2. The second sample included participants who were not allowed to swap pictures once they submitted the picture. That is, once they submit a picture, they were not allowed to change their mind.

After the submissons were made, Daniel Gilbert and his team made observations of the feelings of the two samples. Most members of the first sample had changed their photos after submission and leveraged the benefit available to them.

As per the general perception that choices make us happier, the first sample should have been a happier group as they were given the choice to change their mind and have more liberty in keeping the photo that they liked. The second group should’ve been less happy between the two groups as they didn’t have the option to change the pictures.

However, the study of behavior of both the groups revealed that the first group was more disappointed than the second sample. One week after the submission, the first groups’ members were still in a dilemna about whether they should have changed the photos. Whereas, the second group displayed a happier behaviour as they didn’t have a choice and made a decision to submit a picture spontaneously.

For example, consider Micheal, a student from the first sample. Micheal has two pictures. First picture shows sun rising from behind hills in a picturesque country. The second picture shows the Newyork skyline. Initially, Micheal thought that he liked the picture of the Newyork skyline more than the Sunrise picture. Hence, he submitted the Sunrise picture and kept the Newyork picture for himself. However, after the submission, Micheal started feeling that the Sunrise picture was better as it reminded him of the peaceful morning when he had clicked the picture. As Micheal is from the first sample, he has the option to change the submitted picture. Hence, he goes and changes his picture so that he now has the Sunrise picture and has submitted the Newyork skyline picture. Now, after the two-day deadline for changing picutures passes, Micheal starts thinking whether he should have changed the pictures? This dilemna reduces his happiness of possessing and capturing a beautiful country picture.

Now, consider the example of Michelle. A student from the sample two. She takes two pictures. First picture shows kids playing in a garden and the second picture shows an old castle. Initially she likes and the picture of the castle more than the picture of kids playing in a garden. So, she submits the picture picture showing kids playing in the garden and keeps the picture of the castle. As she is from the first sample, she cannot change the pictures and doesn’t have the dilemna, which Micheal has after his submission.

If we apply the result of this experiment to our daily lives, it leads to a simple, yet fantastic revelation. For example, let’s apply this study to our shopping experience. In the present day, if you go to shop for a pair of jeans, you have to make decisions about whether you want to buy a boot-cut jeans, a monkey-wash jeans, a straight-fit jeans, a cargo jeans, and god knows what not. You struggle to make a choice about which jeans to buy and your attention is diverted from buying the most comfortable jeans to the most stylish jeans. As a result, you purchase a jeans based on its appearance and style rather than its comfort. So, when you wear that jeans, you might appear stylish, but might have some concern about whether you could’ve got a more comfortable jeans instead of this stylish jeans. So, despite looking good in your new jeans, you might have some concern about the jeans’ comfort level. However, the jeans that you bought could be the most comfortable jeans available, but still the innumerable choices succeed in adding confusion to your mind.

Now consider the good old days when, while shopping, we had to make a choice majorly about the color and size of jeans. You used to buy jeans based on its size and color and were most likely to be happy after your purchase. So, is it bad that we have choices now? Or should we burn all the new styles of various products and go back to stone age?

No my friends, the idea is not destroying the new choices, but to draw your own boundaries. That is, draw your own limits before you are about to make a choice. For example, you can say this to yourself before you go shopping – “ I will shop for a cargo jeans and not look at any other variety.” This way, your dilemna regarding the choice can be minimized.

Another noticable research in this regard is conducted by Barry Schwartz, the author of the book: Paradox of Choices. He says that if we consider ourselves to be a fish in a bowl, then let the limits of the bowl define the boundaries of our circle of vision and choices. If we move out of the bowl, then we will struggle for our lives. Hence, define limits for your bowl (life and choices) through careful consideration, and live within those limits to stay happy and peaceful. As you are the designer of your own bowl, ensure that you select the size optimal for your happiness and a size that you can easily maintain through your resources (finance, family, time at hand, friends, etc).

So overall, live a life of content. For ages saints and religious teachers have been preaching the benefits of a life of content and that such life is the key to happiness. It’s great to see that eminent scientists are now agreeing to such claims. As scientists don’t speak without data, making people agree with scientists’ viewpoint is easier than through mere words of preachers who speak based on ancient and religious wisdom.

So, I’ll conclude this post with two Indian sayings:

• Think high and live simple

AND

• Don’t spread your legs beyond your blanket

Overcoming Cross-selling Made by Bank Staff

Privatization in the Indian Banking Industry has revolutionized the financial markets. In the previous decade, our Banking was limited to nationalized banks. Although the service levels were below par and paper work required long processing time, life and banking were simple. However, with the arrival of private banks, your banking might have become simpler, but banking has become riskier. One of the main factors for it is: Cross Selling made by banks’ staff. The act of that of selling an additional product or service to an existing customer is called as cross selling.

Why not to blindly trust a bank’s staff?

As it is said “Never judge a book by its cover,” the same way you should never make decisions on any investments based on the presentation given by the banking staff. However, it requires significant self discipline and keenness to research on the offer in which you are investing your money. In addition, you need to overcome the human tendency to easily accept advice from confident individuals who might not be experts. That is, we humans, tend to accept advice of individuals who are not experts on the topic of discussion, but present their advice in confidently.

For example, consider that you want to invest in a pension scheme. To determine which bank offers the best pension scheme, you visit four banks in your vicinity. In the banks, you meet four different advisers, A, B, C, and D. If B is the most confident adviser, then you are more likely invest in adviser B’s bank (provided the schemes in other banks are not significantly different).

This is also reflected in a research conducted at Emory University. During that research, participants were asked to make a series of financial choices between a certain investment and a lottery. Choices were made in two conditions.

1. During the first condition, participants were shown advices from experts
2. During the second condition, no advice was displayed

Behavioral results showed participant inclination towards choosing the option suggested by the experts. Further inclination was witnessed towards suggestions made by more confident advisers.

So, if you were to visit the banks (as given in the example ), you would not be aware of the level of expertise of the adviser. Hence, your brain maps the information such that a higher confidence level indicates a greater expertise. However, the confidence might not be the only indicator of a person’s expertise. An individual might be parroting a script that they could have learned and thus fake confidence.

So how should you make your decision?

Every time you visit a bank (especially private banks), you are approached by various agents. They will present various schemes, credit cards, or other offers to you. Beware! Don’t fall for their lucrative offers without taking some time to ponder over the schemes. In addition, even if you inquire about a Life Insurance, they would make attempts to sell their Mediclaim, Pension Schemes, and god knows if they would come up with something like a Funeral Scheme that would take care of all your funeral expenses and give you an excellent farewell from the world.

While making a decision about investing with banks and other financial institutions:

• Ensure that you don’t blindly follow the bankers’ suggestions. It is their job to win you as a customer so they might not have your interest at heart.
• Be selfish enough to determine what’s best for you.
• Get off the couch and use Google to compare various schemes offered by different banks and investment firms.
• Consult friends who have made similar investments.
• Think over several options for at least a day. Do not make a decision right then and there.
• Use various scoring models to determine where each scheme stands against each other.
• Assess your present and future liquidity requirements. Investments are a liability while you make payments for them. As a result, if you need to maintain high amount of liquidity in your account for personal reasons, do not invest in a high-payment investment option. If you do so, you might end up seeking personal loan to make committed payments into your investment schemes.

Finally, take the pain of reading each and every line on the offer document. It has very critical information related to the fees and charges associated with investment schemes. In the name of service, bankers just ask us to sign the forms on certain marked places. However, never fall into such a trap. Be careful. It is your hard-earned money that you are giving someone to keep. If you don’t care about the money, then be sure to meet me. I could do with some money that you don’t need.

Do leave a comment

Lokesh