Wednesday, October 13, 2004

list of ways in which nader can become president
1. kerry and bush marry each other. edwards officiates. and dick cheney collapses listening to this news.
2. cant think of any other. well maybe if nader removes a face mask and shows he actually is elvis.

Friday, October 08, 2004

sell me your dreams

the inspiration for this post is in part one article published aeons ago in the times and in part a talk on mems technology in the ECE department at the university of illinois.

Why are the same VCs and individual investors who imploded along with the dotcom bubble ready to invest in nanotech. Why are they investing in MEMS? Are these fields so full of promise that it really is a different story? Why are so many graduate students ready to risk all and choose topics in these nascent areas for their doctoral thesis? And, why the hell do we have such a rosy picture of technology while having a cheneyesque vision about practically everything else...most of believe that the odds of seeing mutated mushrooms and/or radioactive mushroom clouds in our lifetimes are pretty high. Are we nuts?? The following post addreses these questions. The problem according to me is twofold: human psychology and the power of the new salesmen. BTW, if you are just interested in the answer to the last question, don' t read on. the answer is a firm yes.

From dhoom to doom
The semiconductor revolution started in the 40s and 50s. It was a full 20 to 25 years before anyone made anything tangible and 'saleable out of it. and a longer time before the companies involved turned the corner. But once they turned corner there has been no looking back. This not only changed the landscape of engineering and everyday life but also produced a whole new breed of dream merchants. Unlike the NASA labcoats who sold the moon and stars, these guys sold the public dreams of computing and later connectivity before moving on to MEMS and nanotech. Unlike the moonshot guys, the new salesmen were/are private enterprises and hence need to impress the market. not the electorate. there are big risks in this. a success translates into success for many (remember the nineties when my grandma could have got a job in a dotcom). a failure can push us all to desolation and doom (not doom but something similar to the years 2002-2003 when graduate school applications shot up). Here everyone doesnt have a vote; every dollar has its vote. a paper democracy. If the bosses decide to buy into dreams, the subordinates must work for it. its an economic monarchy which increasingly believes in employing foreign mercenaries for its battles. The only saving grace is that we the people get to choose our fucking country.

A Nation of Salesmen
Ever wondered why a Tide or Ariel detergent ad includes references to some scientific bullshit about deteregent composition or crap like dirt or stain molecules? Science has been and will remain the perfect sales vehicle for products. But what when science, new science is the product? You have to impress people with more experience. People who read journal articles (peers) and the people with the vote (dollar vote that is). The trick is two fold: speak about the current to your peers and speak about the future to the rest. (Unless you are a genius like Richard Feynman you cannot get a publication talking about the future). So we have publications dealing with the sweat and grime, mundane stuff like how to get a carbon nanotube of sizes large enough to be seen with the naked eye. While the news reports concentrate on how nanotubes could one day build elevators to the moon. Forget even that. Attend a technical presentation on nanotechnology and you will be surprised that the relevant length scales of most devices being presented are in the microns. Next time i see an SEM with microns in a talk about nanotech i plan to interrupt. Or maybe i will form a group called nanotechnologists for truth. The issue is not that the scientists and engineers are lying. They are not. In fact they tell the absolute truth to whoever listens. So who is lying. The media? The VCs who are investing money? The truth is i dont know. Maybe no one is.

Why are we buying it?
Human beings tend to overestimate the happiness or sadness that will be caused by a future event. We for example overestimate the happiness to be gained by buying a new car or marrying a hot person (it does feel old within a day or a month). We also overestimate the sadness part. We cannot imagine loosing someone close to us and think life will surely stop. But it does go on. This primary problem in human circuitry causes us to believe that a future technology can surely sell. We are sure that nanotech will solve all problems and are willing to buy into it. we are also sure that nanotech will one day go berserk and form grey goo. both the fear and the hope have absolutely no scientific backing. we buy a car to feel happy, then we get a hot girl to sit in it to feel happy......we overestimate happiness , but do not learn from one experience. We will work our asses off to realise what we think will make us happy. Only to start off again on something different. The happiness/sadness thing is not an adaptive mechanism. Its like life, whether a mistake or something beautiful it just goes on without pausing to ask for directions. The same logic goes as to why we fear things so much. We are ready to buy into the arguments of Cheney and company for the same reason.

Enough for this post. The last psychology part is in entirety inspired by this wonderful article on happiness in the new york times sometime in 2002 or 2003. the rest of the shit are my brain droppings.