manipulation as redefinition

The social networks deliberately promote the word "sharing" rather than "showing". You are meant to feel like you are displaying things for generosity, rather than vanity. Also, in "sharing" mode, you become less aware of the fact that you are disclosing bits of your private life.

Incubators use the word "investment" in an uncommon sense. The only thing they provide to the budding entrepreneurs is some office space and a little bit of mentoring. There is often no actual transfer of money. Incubators (at least those in Turkey) are mostly in the business of maintaining a good public image and a high turnover of new projects.

Lesson: Words are powerful and meanings are malleable. That is why every manipulation starts with a redefinition. Hitler has done it. Facebook has done it. Your run-of-the-mill marketers are doing it everyday.

Exercise: Write your own political manifesto by subtly redefining the notion of justice.

forms of cruelty

There are two types of concerns when it comes to evaluating the pros and cons of an economic policy: Efficiency and equality. The former type arises more from intellectual deliberations, while the latter type stems more from emotional considerations.

All forms of cruelty are exercised in the name of either efficiency or equality. Masculine types are more ruthless about matters related to efficiency, while feminine types are more ruthless about matters related to equality.

subject undefined

I have long held psychology in suspicion since it is tremendously difficult to conduct proper experiments on human beings in their natural habitats. We behave differently under different circumstances. We assume different roles in the presence of different people. There is literally no single, continuous personality that can be experimented on. You end up altering the subject the minute your test conditions and measurement mechanisms become sources of interference.

Inter-generational studies are even harder to conduct, and this difficulty poses a problem for biology as well. Given sufficient amount of time, the lineage will accumulate genetic mutations and adjust its bacterial flora in reaction to the experiment conditions. How can you test whether milk is harmful for human beings if lactose tolerance builds up over time? Your scientific mission will be in danger of turning into a tautology: Milk is harmful for lactose intolerant human beings.

exogeneity and spontaneity

"Exogenous shocks" play the same theoretical role in macroeconomics as "spontaneous symmetry breaking" does in particle physics.

• They are comical devices intended for covering up the severe short-comings of a theory that is supposed to be all-encompassing.
• They are devices whose mere existence is contradictory: There can be nothing exogenous to a macroeconomic system, and there can be nothing spontaneous (un-caused) in a physical theory.

finitary axiom of choice

In mathematics, being able to select an element from a single non-empty set S is not judged to be problematic, because the condition that S is non-empty is supposed to supply automatically an element x∈S.

Is there something fishy going on here?

What is the negation of the statement "S is empty"? Is it "S contains at least one element" or "There exists an x∈S"? The latter seems to be providing you information beyond the fact that S is non-empty, but this impression is wrong. The second sentence does not really present an element from S, it presents a label for an arbitrary element of A. In formal logic, one can not construct sentences such as "S contains at least one element". An assertion of existence needs to contain a label for referring to the existent:

You manipulate the label as if you are manipulating an arbitrary element of S. The word "arbitrary" here is very important. Since you do not know which element you are manipulating, you can not use the specific properties of individual elements. But you can still utilize their shared properties! And this is what you often desire anyway. You want to operate at a symbolic level. The ambiguity works in your favour because you are interested only in the shared properties.

Note that x itself is not literally in S. It is a new symbol satisfying all the properties associated with belonging to S. Hence, in some sense, we are voluntarily setting up a curtain of epistemological ignorance here. This is the essence of any abstraction process. Many stumbling blocks in the history of mathematics was of this nature. People could not get their heads around a certain new construction because they insisted on knowing "what" they were manipulating. For instance, zero seemed to be some sort of a mystical embodiment of nothingness, while in reality it was just a symbol satisfying certain algebraic properties.

Anyway let us go back to our discussion. So, in the finite case, Axiom of Choice is indistinguishable from the statement that there exists an x∈S. In order to see this in detail, let us recall the exact statement of the axiom:

A choice function is a function f, defined on a collection X of nonempty sets, such that for every set S in X, f(S) is an element of S. With this concept, the axiom can be stated: For any set X of nonempty sets, there exists a choice function f defined on X. (Source)

Say X consists of a single non-empty set S. Then Axiom of Choice guarantees that the set of choice functions defined on X is non-empty. This allows you to pick an arbitrary choice function f. You know that f(S) is an element of S, but you can not tell which element because you can not tell which choice function f is. In order words, you are provided with an arbitrary element of S.

Note that the distinction between an actual element and an arbitrary one becomes more blurred as the set itself becomes more arbitrary. If S is equal to {1,2,3}, then the distinction is clear. What if S is an arbitrary set with three elements? Then there is almost no difference between an actual element and an arbitrary one. Hence, in that case, the label presented by the formal statement of the fact that S is non-empty can be literally treated as an element of S.

Hence, in the finite case, axiom of choice is a by-product of the notion of a "finite" arbitrary set and "finitistic" logic. Therefore we do not need it as an additional axiom in finitistic set theory. In the infinite case, it needs to be taken as an additional axiom since we continue to work in finitistic logic. If we could form infinitely long logical statements, then again axiom of choice would be a mere by-product.

This observation really clarifies the matter. Axiom of Choice comes implicitly embedded inside the notion of an arbitrary set. The basic, fundamental problem is arbitrariness... In the case of finitary Axiom of Choice, we do not recognize its presence because the logic itself takes care of it. Of course, all that the logic does is to sweep the problem under the rug.

Abel and Galois unraveled the ambiguity inherent into every algebraic equation of degree greater than one - the ambiguity in choosing one out of several solutions (roots) of such equation. Thus, they founded a mathematical framework for the study of symmetry, arbitrariness and ambiguity which has eventually grown into the modern group theory. It may seem to a non-mathematician that only Buridan's ass would have any difficulty in choosing one of the two * from **. But try to program a robot doing this, where the two * are not conveniently positioned on a line, you can not just command: "take the left one".

Gromov - Structures, Learning and Ergo Systems (Page 56)

Choosing an actual element from a non-empty structureless set is not as simple as it sounds.You need a human being to ignite the mathematical engine! In fact, constructivists claim that even a human being is incapable of this feat unless he is provided with an actual instruction for locating an element.

Don't let the simplicity of the content of this discussion fool you. These are issues of deep philosophical importance. The difficulty of making a choice in a structureless set is precisely the first problem that a believer in an observer-independent theory of reality needs to overcome.

myth of equality

Talent is overrated in business precisely because business success requires a very well-rounded skill set. On the other hand, there are many areas where talent still rules. (e.g. dance, music, mathematics, chess, athletics) Nevertheless people like Gladwell continue to believe that one can master any subject by devoting 10,000 hours to it. This is complete bullshit. He obviously has had no teaching experience. Talent distinguishes itself really early on. It is impossible to create a master painter out of a random selected person by brute practice alone. Same holds for mathematics.

For some reason, our generation is obsessed with democratization. We are constantly bombarded with the message that we can achieve anything if we really wanted to. We are all supposedly born equal. Genes and gender are claimed to make no difference, despite the mountains of evidence that they do.

The myth of equality is more damaging to the society than the belief that only talented people can succeed. It creates unrealistic expectations and dismisses the important role played by random circumstantial factors. People everywhere are blaming themselves for being a failure. It is a widespread, sick psychological situation, partly fueled by influential populists like Gladwell.

interesting factoid

Here is a factoid that I ran into while interning at a shipping company a few years ago. To my dismay, none of the colleagues found my little discovery interesting. (The level of curiosity and intellectual drive is quite low in these sectors.)

Fact

A chemical tanker burns the same amount of fuel no matter whether it is loaded or not. (Note that this statement is completely false for trucks, planes etc.)

Some Speculative Explanations

- As a ship is loaded with more weight, its depth below the water line increases. This allows the vessel to go straight through the waves rather than riding over them, and thereby decreases the actual distance travelled to reach the destination. Despite the heavier weight being pulled, the fuel consumption does not change due to this added efficiency.

- A propeller works by pushing out water particles and thereby creating a conic spiral wave behind the ship. The top of this cone is always horizontally cut out since the water particles have nowhere to go when they reach the surface. When a ship is loaded, it propeller gets further away from the surface. In other words, the mentioned cone becomes larger, and the push generated becomes greater. This results in higher fuel efficiency.

tragic discrepancies

While financial markets are hallmarks of transparency, liquidity and efficiency, commodity markets are the exact opposite. They are the most opaque, illiquid and inefficient markets of all. Despite this fact, people running commodity companies are on average much less sophisticated and educated than their counterparts in the finance world. This discrepancy is twisted and tragic.

Dealing in commodities requires much more than a smart mind:

You need to be very proactive while gathering information. (Even something as basic as who has how much stock is usually treated as secretive information.) This includes attending long, tiresome conferences, arranging prostitutes for certain people and bribing certain others. Since governments are frequently involved on the supply side and since supply is often constrained, you also need to maintain close relationships with the relevant officials.

You have to know the players in the your sector really well. Moves and trades in financial markets are anonymous, but those in commodities can be identified and traced. (The number of important players are a lot fewer.) Hence knowing the personalities and quirks of traders will give you hints about how they may behave under future circumstances and how they may respond to your future actions. You also need to keep track of who are friends with whom. Potential off-the-record collaborations happen all the time and change the market dynamics.

• You need to watch closely certain macro economic indicators such as interest, inflation and growth rates. They affect each player's financing costs and investment projections. They also influence the demand for your products via a variety of complex channels.
• Although most markets are denominated in dollars, your costs may not be. This means that you need to hedge whatever exchange-rate risks you are exposed to.
• Finalization of each transaction usually takes some time and during this period your initial assumptions may go haywire. This requires you to manage counter-party risks via the available commodity finance and insurance mechanisms.
• You need to keep track of developments in the futures markets which may be dominated by finance companies completely unknown in the spot markets. Future and spot prices can interact in very complicated ways. Causal arrows go both ways.
• There is no single price in any commodity market. Each quotation is a function of delivery date, place and form of financing. In particular, this implies that you need to be on top of things in the shipping markets. Lots of things can go wrong.
• As I had remarked elsewhere, a typical commodity supply agreement contains many hidden options. Pricing of these options requires as much financial sophistication as the most complicated structured finance products demand.
• As if all these intricacies were not enough, in any given market, there is usually no single unique commodity that is being traded. In coal markets, for instance, traders negotiate prices with respect to parameters such as moisture, ash, calorific and sulfuric content. In chrome ore markets, they pay attention to iron-chrome ratio, and iron and silicon contents. The number of parameters often overwhelm those witnessed in the financial markets. Even if you can gather some timely information from publications and private channels, the data will often be so crude that no sort of future looking analysis can be conducted.

The most protracted recessions are caused by over investment in commodities markets. We need more sophisticated people in these sectors to avoid deep economic downturns. Colossal mistakes are made on a daily basis. The only reason why they are not noticed and corrected is because there is nobody knowledgeable enough to take advantage of them.

Unfortunately, a favourable demographic evolution is very unlikely to take place. The incumbents are rough government agencies and non-meritocratic family companies which have way too much power in their hands.

information and structure

In order to unearth an underlying structure, you need to selectively forget some of the available information. This meta-principle is manifested in so many places that it would be pointless to make a list. (In some sense the notion of cognition is based on it. No wonder why it is so ubiquitous.)

Here is a quick mathematical example. In order to assign a singular chain complex to a topological space, we collate together face maps to create boundary operators. While doing so, we lose a lot of information. (The images of these operators are quite small.) Yet enough information is encoded to recover topological invariants such as the Euler characteristic.

absurdity of self-defeat

Do you want to discredit someone or revoke a thesis? Be succinct. Use sarcasm. Aim at the underlying absurdities.

Here are three great examples where a doctrine is pointed out to be a self-defeating one:

• Economist Frank Knight described the Chicago School's positivism as "the emotional pronouncement of value judgements condemning emotion and value judgements which seems to [me] a symptom of a defective sense of humor."

• Philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser's response to P.F. Skinner (the founder of radical behaviorism): "Let me see if I understand your thesis. You think we shouldn’t anthropomorphize people?"

• Philosopher Donald Davidson's take on relativism: "The dominant metaphor of conceptual relativism, that of different points of view, seems to betray an underlying paradox. Different points of view make sense, but only if there is a common coordinate system on which to plot them; yet the existence of a common system belies the claim of dramatic incomparability." (Similarly, Auguste Comte said “Everything is relative; and only that is absolute.”)

• Philosopher Ken Wilber’s take on antihierarchy theorists:

Q: But many feminists and many ecophilosophers claim that any sort of hierarchy or "ranking" is oppressive, even fascist. They say that all such value ranking is "old paradigm" or "patriarchal" or oppressive, and it ought to be replaced with a linking, not a ranking, worldview. They're very aggressive with this point; they hurl rather harsh accusations.

KW: This is a bit disingenuous, because you can't avoid hierarchy. Even the antihierarchy theorists that you mention have their own hierarchy, their own ranking. Namely, they think linking is better than ranking. Well, that's a hierarchy, a ranking of values. But because they don't own up to this, then their hierarchy becomes unconscious, hidden, denied. Their hierarchy denies hierarchy. They have a ranking system that says ranking is bad.

Ken Wilber - A Brief History of Everything (Page 25)

A self-defeating argument arises strange feelings.

• It is like a suicidal person who feels like he should have never been born in the first place. The fact that he kills himself at the end does not mean that his life was devoid of enlightening stories. Similarly, Søren Kierkegaard said the following in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments: "[The reader] can understand that to write a book and to revoke it is not the same as refraining from writing it, that to write a book that does not demand to be important for anyone is still not the same as letting it be unwritten."

• It is false, but nevertheless the very act of self-defeat can be illuminating. The proof of "P implies ¬P" may contain derivations of some non-trivially true statements.

• It is valuable for the same reason why every false argument is valuable: It teaches a lesson.

• It is poetic. It provides a glimpse of the fiery walls separating truth from falsehood.

• It lies on the border between existence and non-existence. It is like a particle that spontaneously produces its own anti-particle and thereby annihilates itself out of existence.

• It is like the Ouroboros, both scary and mystifying.