Morality from Game Theory perspective

Yesterday someone told me about an English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. As I was reading a bit about him, I came across a very different perspective on morals. It mentioned morals are derived from self-interest !

Here's a question: Is rape a right or wrong ?

The obvious answer is wrong. Rape is an act involving two or more people. And this act takes place without the consent of one of the individuals. 

Now, another question is asked. Why is consent of an individual important ? And this is where the trouble begins. Consider a hypothetical society in which every individual is allowed to do anything. There is no right and there is no wrong. In such a society the strongest person will be allowed to do anything he desires and the weak won't have a choice. So, the strongest man can rape any woman he wants and get away with it as there is no right or wrong in this case. But, majority of the society is weak. The weaker section will not want their closed ones to be raped. Hence, as this society evolves a moral is introduced that rape is wrong. This moral is thus derived from self-interest.

To understand how a society evolves, we need to understand a term called evolutionarily stable state (ESS). Most of you must have watched the movie 'Shark Tales'. In that movie we see a bunch of fish cleaning the teeth of whales. This happens in real world as well. The whale is a stronger fish of the lot and cleaners(I just came up with the term) are the weak.

Now lets consider four possibilities which might occur:

1. The cleaner fish and the whales never met.

2. The cleaner fish take advantage of opportunity and eat the flesh of the whales and get away with it.

3. The whales let the cleaners clean their teeth and after that eat it.

4. Both engage in a symbiotic relationship. The cleaners clean the teeth and whale lets them go.

Now, over a period of time the first possibility will get eliminated. For the second possibility, as the time goes on, the future generations of whales will become intelligent and will not allow the cleaners to come near them. Similar will be the case in the third possibility. Now, the fourth option is what we see happening now. So, this possibility now becomes an Evolutionarily Stable State.

The same concept explains the evolution of the society. Now. lets go back to the society where anyone can do anything and there is no right or no wrong.

Here's an excerpt from Leviathan (book by Thomas Hobbes):

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

– Leviathan XIII "Chapter XIII.: Of the Natural Condition of Mankind As Concerning Their Felicity, and Misery.", Leviathan

And thus moral, ethics and laws are formed and we now live in a society which is an Evolutionarily Stable State.

Ayodhya Issue

The recent verdict on the Ayodhya issue made me take a look at what the fuss was all about. The entire nation was waiting anxiously for the verdict.All my colleagues, my room mates, my parents and almost everyone I knew were waiting for it. Even next day, my group manager, who sits in US, asked me about how the things were in Hyderabad after the Verdict. Never in my life I had seen people waiting so eagerly for a verdict. Frankly speaking, I don't really care about religious issues. But this issue intrigued me and I could not resist to explore it.

Here's what I dug up. Some X hundred years ago, Babber, supposedly, destroyed a Hindu Temple and built the Babri Masjid. Then in 1949, someone found idols of Lord Ram in the Masjid premises and filed a case in court that the land actually belonged to Hindus. Then after 40 odd years, some fanatics destroyed the Babri Masjid leading to communal riots across the nation. And then after nearly 20 years, the verdict on the Ayodhya issues came, dividing the disputed land in three equal parts.

I was talking to some of my friends regarding this and they really helped me understanding what goes on in the minds of the people regarding this issue. I asked them "What's the problem in making a temple at some distance from the disputed land?" I mean doing this can resolve this issue for once and all. If the Muslims have their Masjid over their now, let them have a land. I got some really interesting answers.

Here are some of the points that struck me the most. It was clearly wrong to destroy a temple and make a Masjid on the same land. After some 500 odd years the truth finally came out and the idols of  Lord Ram were found in the Masjid premises. For the Muslims, the land does not signify any thing. Only thing is that connects them to Ayodhya is the Masjid. But for Hindus, Ayodhya has a much deeper meaning. Its the birthplace of Lord Ram. So, why don't the Muslims back off and lets us make the temple on the disputed land and they make their Masjid at some distance from the disputed land. If the Hindus back out Here (Birthplace of Lord Ram), they will, in short, declare that please come destroy our temples and make Masjids on the same land.

Their opinions did make some sense. But I was not totally convinced. They told me that it was wrong to destroy the temple and make a Masjid on top of  it. I said, isn't this the same thing we tried to do in 1992? Also its not proven that Babber destroyed the temple. The temple could already be in ruins when he made Babri Masjid. I agreed to the point that Hindus have a connection with Ayodhya. But again, was Lord Ram not born in that exact place? So Hindus have a connection with Ayodhya and not the disputed land.

Now lets come to the point of Muslims backing off. I am not on anyone's side over here. People should realize that God does not want you to kill another human being, achieve victory, make a Temple/Masjid and worship him. Is a Temple/Masjid at one particular spot so important to connect with God? Let me give a very simple example. Suppose you drive over a dog by mistake (be it any reason, does not really matter). You will stop your car and at least check if you can do something for the poor soul. And anyone with a heart does this! But when is comes to religious issues, people kill each other in the name of  God. What religion teaches this!

Actually, you can not say that a person fighting for this cause is wrong. There is no right or wrong here. Its just that some person can relate to the issue and fight for it and others like me don't feel so strongly about the issue. But one thing I can say for sure and it is "Whatever be your (religious)beliefs, it can not justify killing of and other human being". Its time now for us to move on from such things. We have been played with enough on this by media and politicians. Its time we all stand together and pray together on the same Holy Land of OURS.

For Mom and Dad

For all the love that you have given
For all the care that you have taken
How can I ever be so grateful ?
I just live with a hope, that some day
I would be able to do the same
what you have done for me your whole life...

Money..is it all that bad ?

I was reading this story on some blog. It was about a man who was burning Money. The author had brilliantly written this short story. Some points in the story hit me quite hard. The author had described Money as thing which everyone was running after. Then, about the man who was burning Money, he said that money must have taken something more precious from him and that must have made him HATE money so much that he started to burn it. And he concluded that there are somethings more important than money. I was with him till here. But then I read the comments. People mentioned that WE are burning our youth, our relationship, our health running behind money. The generalization to WE is what bothered me the most.

Throughout our life we are told, money can buy you a bed, but not sleep. Money can buy you luxuries, but not peace of mind. Money can not buy love. Money can not buy friends. Most Bollywood movies we see, show the poor as the victims and rich as tyrants. Always poor will need the money and the rich won't help out. Thus symbolizing money is bad. 

Its not that I disagree to what we are told or what we see. Its just that, I feel these things are misinterpreted. Firstly I will talk about the comments.

Lets take an example. Some XYZ comes from a middle class family and dreams of having all the luxuries of the rich say a nice,bungalow, a farm house, a nice car or whatever. This persons works very hard all his life to fulfill his dreams. He has to make some sacrifices for this. Say he screwed up his relationships while doing this. Will you say he was wrong in running behind his dream? They tell you to follow your dreams and make sacrifices to fulfill them. If a persons chose money as his dream and screwed up his relationships then he is wrong. But when a person chose to free a country and screwup his relationships then he is MAHATMA.

Now let me shed some light on how the things we are told throughout our life are misinterpreted. They say Money can buy you a bed, but not sleep. What if XYZ works really hard for his money and buys a nice bed. I don't see any reason why he can not sleep. Din't money buy him sleep here ? They say  Money can buy you luxuries, but not peace of mind. Who decides in what I find my peace of mind? I might find peace of mind watching a movie, going on a walk, taking a vacation. It could be anything. Now if XYZ finds peace of mind when he enjoys his luxuries, din't money buy him his peace of mind. They say money can't buy you friends or love. But why do they assume that these things are mutually exclusive ?If XYZ's partner and his friends understand that he runs behind money to fulfill his dreams, why will they not stand by him? If he manages his work-personal life balance well, I don't see any reason why he can not have both money and love. 

That was pretty much what I had in my mind.I'll let you decide for yourself, if money is all that bad.

No Disrespect but what a sham!

Just came back from a trip to Tirupati Balaji and Golden Temple,Vellore. Original plan was just to meet my family in Tirupati, take Darshan and come back. But when I reach Tirupati my parents tell me that we are first going to Vellore and then we have Darshan at night. 

So we started for Vellore at noon. It was arnound 130 kms from Tirupati. I took us 4 hours to reach the place due the beautiful infrastructure provided by our government. We reached there at around 4:30 pm. As I entered the Temple, I saw a board saying "Divya Darshan Rs 100/-". I go to counter to inquire about this Divya Darshan. The guy told me," Divya Darshan in  2 hours and Normal Darshan 3 hours". I realize TIME IS MONEY. I also asked him if there were any other difference between the two. He says Divya Darshan is nearer to the idol than the Normal Darshan. I din't understand what this meant. I decide to go for the Divya Darshan. So I take 4 tickets and enter the Temple. They say the temple is constructed in the shape of a Kundli. So it has eight corners and a centre point where the idol is placed. Basically we started from one point covered the other seven points. The temple is more like a resort. Located in the middle of mountains, beautiful landscaping, wonderful wonderful garden and a lake. You get to enjoy all this as you move from one corner to the other. After a 45 mins walk we reach the idol. The idol is placed in a temple made of gold. Again, they say it took 256 quintals of gold to make it. The temple is really marvelous. When I was taking Darshan I just decide to take a look around. To my surprise I found there were around 100 people standing behind a rope. Probably at a distance of 20 feet from where I was standing. I realized that these must be the guys who opted for the Normal Darshan. I could not resist grinning.

The journey back to Tirupati was quite normal. It started to rain cats and dogs as we had just started back. Our cars' headlights were a bit damaged and were not bright enough. As the journey progressed we came to know that our driver was not much experienced. He rammed the car on a divider and blamed it to bad light and heavy rains. We also saw a car just ahead lose its balance and go off the road. Apart from these, the journey was fun.
I reached Tirupati by midnight. I had got a special pass which allowed me and my Dad to sit in the Pooja for a whole 30 mins. The Pooja was supposed to start at 4 a.m. but we had to start at 1:30 am to get to the Pooja on time. You know, the usually checking like the one we have the airports. 
Allow me to enlighten on how I got to go for this Pooja.There was this guy who had donated 10 lacs INR to the Temple. So every year he gets to sit in one of the Poojas along with five other members. The names of these members have to be submitted when you make are making the pass (i.e. at the time of donation). This guy respects my dad a lot and as a token of respect he invited two of our family menbers to join him for the Pooja. Before entering the main temple there was a cross check of who is who and they asked us for photo-identity proofs. This was meant to allow only the CHOSEN people to enter the temple. We somehow convinced the guy that we din't know about this and so we do not have any photo-identity proofs. Me and my dad were assigned fake names and this allowed us to sit for the Pooja. This was the first time I had used a fake identity and what a place to start off with !
I reached the main temple by 3:30 a.m. and waited patiently for the Pooja to start. So me along with around 30 other privileged guys are in a room very near to the Lord's idol. The feeling was out of the world,seriously. I could see more than 200 guys (this was what I could see) standing at 4 a.m. in the morning just to take a glimpse at the Lord. Everyone chanting the Lord's name. Govinda..Govinda..Venkatramana Govinda ! The Pooja lasted for 30 odd minutes. After I made my wishes, I turned around. Again I saw the same thing. Hundreds of people were standing behind a rope (around 35 feet from where I was sitting). But this time it was even more horrible. These guys were being pushed after they barely got to see the Lord's idol. Later I came to know that these were the people who had VIP Darshan pass. I could not even imagine what normal darshan was in here.
After the Pooja was over and I came out, I saw that the Pundit who had performed the Pooja was standing right outside the door and gesturing for Dakshina. On giving him the Dakshina, I got some Tulsi leaves which I assumed were offered to the Lord in the Pooja. And I thought there were some things which money could not buy.
The next day I had to purchase the famous Tirupati Laddoos. For these, first you need to get in queue for about an hour to purchase a Ticket. Then you need to get in a queue for a Polythene bag without which you can not get you Laddoos. And yes, the bags were pretty cheap. Only Rs 2 /- a bag. And after this you have to stand in the queue to get your Laddoos. This takes around 2 hours if you are lucky.
It was quite a learning experience for me. Let me put my learnings in bullets

• God does not like everyone. God spends more time with rich people.
•  People with more money are closer to God.
• Best Business Idea: Open a Temple and somehow make it famous. Also make sure no one can get pics of your temple.
• Basic of how market works: Create a necessity and then sell it.

After spending a couple of days with my family I was pretty much content with my trip. It was quite a long time since all four of us (me, my dad, my mom and my younger brother) were together. I had a really great time.

Incidences

Well this is my first blog. Like most others I thought I'll start off my blog describing how I stumbled upon the idea of writing a blog and that I have been meaning to do this for a long time, but could not do it due to some or the other reason. But then I decided against it. In this post I am gonna narrate three very small, insignificant incidents. I don't know why, but these incidents have stuck in my mind and I can't seem to forget them. I don't know if these incidences have some deeper meaning that might have struck me or something like that. I seriously don't know. So I'll just be quoting these incidences blandly. Here they go:


Incident 1:
There is this guy in my building who takes care of all the trivial things like cleaning vehicles, ironing clothes,etc. He has a kid, around 12 years of age. He usually helps his father in his chores. 
Everyday, before going to office I shine my bike :-) . One day I forgot to bring the cloth I use to clean it. So I look around and I find this kid cleaning other vehicles. So I ask him if I could borrow his  cloth for a minute. He said that he'll clean the bike for me and started doing it without waiting for a reply. When he is done I give him Rs. 10. But he denied saying that he does it everyday. One more vehicle doesn't make any difference. I was surprised. He is quite young. He is poor. But he denied the money ! 
Ultimately I persuaded him to take the money saying that I am not giving this as alms. Its what he has earned. But  still his denial surprised me.


Incident 2:
I had parked my bike in basement of my office building. My office building is newly constructed. So it has a couple of leakages here and there. The place where I had parked my bike was right below one of these leakages. And it started to pour heavily that afternoon. In the evening,when I reached the basement, there was water everywhere around my bike.But surprisingly my bike was not drenched. I noticed that someone had moved my bike and because of this my bike was not all wet.I was happy to see this and I had to find out who did this.I looked around and found a security guard. I asked him if he had moved my bike. He said that he did it because it would have gotten all wet and covered with dirt. I thanked him and was reaching for my wallet. He understood my intentions and said that he is not allowed to take money from the employees.
I was again surprised. I mean this guy moved my bike even though it was not his duty. He should not have even bothered to look out for this. But he went out of his way and did it. And then he denied what I owed him !


Incident 3:
Every afternoon I go downstairs for a tea and a smoke. Usually some ladies will be sitting there selling tea, cigarettes, etc. That particular day, I approached a lady and asked her for tea. She got surprised and she dropped the cup of tea she was holding. It was then I noticed that the lady was actually a beggar and was having tea sitting under a tree. I felt real bad for what I had done. I apologized. She said that it was not my fault. I then bought her a cup of tea. She was not accepting the tea saying that it was not my fault that she dropped her cup. "Beta teri galti nahi thi !". I any how gave her the cup of tea and left without having a smoke.