"Metaphorically then, not to open your water taps fully while shaving is dharma; not to jump the red light on the traffic signal is dharma; and not to pollute the air we breathe is dharma."
"In India nearly every situation is encountered as a first-time situation and people respond to them as such- so for sheer survival one has to be extremely intelligent. You have to be extremely intelligent to grasp in a split second that the traffic cop has no vehicle to chase you with, and so you can jump the red light with impunity. Or judge in the flash of an eye whether he has a pen and notebook with him to jot down your number- if he does not have these with him, you assume it is safe to ignore his signal to you to pull over. Or to figure out, when on impulse you spit copiously on the street from the safety of your balcony and a poor pedestrian happens to intercept your wad, that there is precious little he can do, short of DNA testing, to prove that it was you who spat."
"When I jump a queue or a red light, or throw that garbage on the sidewalk, I am taking a rational 'squeal' decision, since it seems to get me ahead of others or make life easier for me. Here I am being privately smart. But then, as others are no less rational, intelligent and smart, they too start 'squealing' for the same reasons, and before we know it, we have unruly traffic, filthy streets and stinking urinals. So collectively we are worse off, just as the two prisoners in the dilemma. And then we complain about a dirty country, a polluted city and apalling traffic. In short, publicly we emerge dumb."
"...It was Nobel laureate John Nash who first turned his attention to rivalries with mutual gain, that is, non-zero-sum situations, where one does not have to win at the cost of another, as both parties can emerge winners."
From "Games Indians Play" by V. Raghunathan.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
On the poetic sensibility, in its many manifestations
About Me
- Siyaah
- "Fard-e-amal Siyaah kiye ja raha hoon main, Rahmat ko bepanaah kiye ja raha hoon main": Blackening life's canvas of deeds to the extreme, It is I who expand divine compassion to the limitless.
Search This Blog
Selected Resources
Blogroll: Co-Travelers
Posts
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
3 comments:
A very good application of Nash's concept. It's difficult to remember it while you're on the road, specially if nobody else seems to be using it, but now I see that it can give you the assurance that it is not impossible that things could be solved by co-operation. Sometimes we say 'kuch nahi ho sakta', now I'll always know that at least 'ho to sakta hai!'
Mostly, it's just this sort of a belief that is needed!
Guess I'll like to read this book!
reminded me of this documentary given that John Nash is being mentioned and the context is quite similar. a must watch I would say for the bigger picture. Not just in the context of India and Indians, but modeling human nature in general and the pitfalls,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(television_documentary_series)#1._.22Fuck_You_Buddy.22_.2811_March_2007.29
vibhav: A critical mass of people thinking a certain way- that is where it would start...the book is worth a look, simply because it covers new ground.
arfi: As with all economics oriented theories, game theory also makes oversimplifying assumptions about human nature. However one contribution of Nash was to highlight the importance of cooperation even with these assumptions- the positive sum games, implying that for one to gain, the other doesn't have to necessarily lose- it can be a win-win.
Post a Comment