Capitalism, Socialism, et all

I received the following email today:

***Start***
An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student, but had once failed an entire class.

The class (students) insisted that socialism worked since no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism."

"All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A."

After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who had studied hard were upset while the students who had studied very little were happy.

But, as the second test rolled around, the students who had studied little studied even less and the ones who had studied hard decided that since they couldn't make an A, they also studied less. The second Test average was a D.

No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average grade was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling, all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else.

To their great surprise all failed. The professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder people try to succeed the greater their reward (capitalism) but when a government takes all the reward away (socialism) no one will try or succeed.
***End***

I think this story is imaginary and hence not right. There are just too many implausible assumptions. I'll list some, making one of my own assumptions, that this story is propagated by an anti-socialism capitalist.

1. It assumes that everyone slacks which is the worst case scenario. In the best case scenario, everyone would have studied harder cause everyone would have realized that by studying a little harder everyone would get an A.

2. Since the entire class believed in Socialism, chances are the A graders would have helped the others to improve by "sharing" their knowledge and tricks and tips for exams, etc. It assumes that students gave up their beliefs altogether after just 1 test.

3. It also assumes that most students in the class were A graders and a few few slackers, how else would they average B in the first test?! So with 1 + 2 + 3, this was the perfect class model for socialism to succeed.

Here's another implausible capitalist scenario for the class. The teacher likes the A grade student. So he pays more attention to them and ignores the F ones. He answers more questions of the A students and less of the F ones. He spends extra time with the A students after school hours to make them A+ where as the F ones suffer due to negligence and become F-. Since the professor already likes the A+ students he forgives a lot of their follies, and gives them a lot more opportunities. He also rewards them more handsomely for every little achievement. Infact none of their achievements are little any more. He also alters his teaching style to suit the A graders so that they can become A+++. All the time the F graders are being constantly ignored and becoming F---. The professor himself looks like a Professor+++ because he has some really bright A+++ students. Other Professors quicly learn the reason behind this Professors success and start replicating the same in their classes. So what we now have is a bunch of A+++s all over the place, who are, in fact, simply As, but think of themselves as A+++++++s, only hang around with other A+++++++s, and are completely oblivious to all the F----------s around them. The F graders grow up to envy the A graders, and the envy grows to envy++++++++ (or envy--------, if you like it that way) and eventually declare an all out war against the A graders. All the A graders and F graders fight each other all the time, and eventually everyone kills everyone, and everyone dies!

Delusionary POS

Every now and then I like to cross-check the meaning of certain words on dictionary.com. Todays word is delusion. Here are the first two explanations of the word delusion on dictionary.com

de·lu·sion [di-loo-zhuhn]
noun
1. an act or instance of deluding.
2. the state of being deluded.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/delusion)

How brilliant! Explaining the meaning of a word by using the same word! That makes me think that dictionary.com is a POS. Now, I know POS is an acronym, and habitually I also like to look up acronymfinder.com, which I promptly do for POS. 79 results returned and closest one to my intent is

*** POS Piece Of Stuff (polite form)
http://www.acronymfinder.com/POS~3.html

That makes me think that acronymfinder.com is also a POS!

Facebook, Twitter, et all

Earlier today, my good old friend asked me - whats the deal with twitter. I, a regular (not ardent) user, explained to my friend what twitter meant to me. You have 140 characters to tweet whats on your mind, and there are followers out there who are interested in following your tweets. Twitter seems like a good business idea e.g. if Toys R Us (my friend has a toddler) tweets a special discount at a neighborhood store, and you pick the tweet, you could get a deal sweet. Twitter is also good for celebs, where fans can get an inside peek into their day to day lives, whatever they are willing to share. So for a teen that is totally infatuated to the next American Idol winner, it is possible to keep up on the gossip because of all the tweets coming straight out of the horses mouth.

The talk quickly turned to Facebook, and my explanation was easier. Facebook is to me what Orkut is to my friend. A site that keeps me up-to-date on my friends (via status updates, posts, pics, etc). Inevitably the idea of losing real touch and inability to make new close friends took over the discussion. We seem unable to develop deep connections with anyone. We yearn for face value; everyone is busy in their lives. We want to meet friends more often, but alas we have to contend ourselves with the more passive ways of keeping in touch. All these thoughts have occurred to me before. After fighting them for a while I gave into the idea of - just go with the flow. That's when I joined twitter and became really active on facebook. I thought I had two choices - either sit and grumble about how we have lost those good old days OR do the best I can with whatever the new trends are...while not losing all the (g)old ways. I figured it's a phase of life that many before me have been through and many after me will, too.

I remember how my parents struggled to understand how I could talk to a friend on the phone for hours tonight and another few tomorrow morning. What could I possibly have to talk about so much so soon?! They never understood. Just like I don't understand why some kids today SMS and tweet and FB instead of simply emailing, chatting or best of all telephoning. But the one thing I understood was, my parents never had a phone to chat with friends for hours, I did. Then came emails, and I could write to more friends more regularly. It was so much easier than having to call each one - to give the same invitation over phone for example. Then came Instant Messengers, and that was a boon, cause now I could keep in touch with friends all the time, real time. I chatted for hours at a stretch, sometimes even going overnight.

Today I know a little more about a lot of people that I would not have, had it not been for facebook/orkut. I may not be in touch with all my friends regularly, but atleast I am not out of touch.

My latest addiction is updating my facebook status and seeing how many folks like it and how many have responded to it. I don't follow others as much as others seem to follow me. I figured that there are 2 kinds of people in the world - those that like to talk and those that like to listen. And no matter what the medium, those 2 kinds continue to co-exist for and because of each other. Needless to say I am the tweeter. Extending that idea further, I think that's why I am a standup comedian. I go up on a stage, in front of strangers, and like to talk to them. The audience, likes to listen to me, a complete stranger. We both co-exist for and because of each other.

The mediums may change but the purpose is the same. Staying in touch, and voicing your opinions, and the likes. Now the dilemma, should I post this on Facebook or publish it in my blog?!

Oh, and for all the talk about quality time with friends, my good old friend and I had this deep, long, philosophical discussion on GTalk!!