Posts

Showing posts with the label Wikipedia

Decision Making as Output and Bounded Rationality

  The classical economics theories proceed on the assumption of rational agents. Rationality implies the economic agents undertake actions or exercise choices based on the cost-benefit analysis they undertake. The assumption further posits that there exists no information asymmetry and thus the agent is aware of all the costs and benefits associated with the choice he or she has exercised. The behavioral school contested the decision stating the decisions in practice are often irrational. Implied there is a continuous departure from rationality. Rationality in the views of the behavioral school is more an exception to the norm rather a rule. The past posts have discussed the limitations of this view by the behavioral school. Economics has often posited rationality in the context in which the choices are exercised rather than theoretical abstract view of rational action. Rational action in theory seems to be grounded in zero restraint situation yet in practice, there are numerous restra

Reclaiming Lost History

  In a previous post “ Saffron Swords ”, there was an attempt to review the book by the same name. The book sought to collate together the stories of those known and unknown fighters who put their lives at stake in defence of the motherland. They might have fought against the British or they might have fought against the Sultanate and their successors, but they did not shirk away from fighting to protect their independence. As the book argues, contrary to the popular perception, neither the Islamic invaders nor the Europeans had an easy time in managing India. They were faced with resistance at every nook and corner and in many instances, the victory they obtained was perhaps pyrrhic. Interestingly, barring the Mughals, there was hardly an Islamic dynasty that had a long uninterrupted rule either in Delhi or in other regions. Maybe the Bahamans would come close but they never had uncontested supremacy with them being constantly challenged and often outpowered by the Vijayanagara rulers

Wikipedia and Indic Contestations

There is an interesting post by Dr. Subhash Kak on the medium. The post is titled “ Wikipedia or Trashpedia ”. It is a post or a rant or an exasperation or warning but nevertheless posits few pointers good or bad that cannot be ignored. Its contention is the on the nature and content of Wikipedia when it comes to dealing with non-European or non-Western cultures. Without doubt Wikipedia is the numero uno when it comes to information. It is perhaps the largest repository of information and to boost the same, it is dynamic. Hardly any information repository has come close to Wikipedia in achieving the compiling of information about almost everything under the sun and beyond in such a short period of time. It’s business model so as to speak has been of difference which has brought in numerous books and publications that extoll it to be classic example of what lies ahead in our production, distribution and consumption models. It is deemed as perfect platform for the emergence of what Toffl

Wiki'nomics', Narrative Contestations and Indic Ecosystem

Wikipedia monopolizes the online encyclopedia segment for all practical purposes. To an individual, the first link from Google Search results invariably points towards a Wikipedia entry. Given its usual spot in the top 10 Google search results, Wikipedia usually occupies a top of mind recall for many people. Their first source of knowledge ingraining is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not merely a crowd-sourced encyclopedia but has emerged as authoritative repository of knowledge. With passage of time, Wikipedia is expanding into non English languages too. Even in the context of Indic languages, Wikipedia might emerge as leading information production and dissemination contrary to expectations. Implied is the current and the future generation at least in the immediate future would get their information from Wikipedia. Therefore information as existing on Wikipedia in all likelihood will be treated as truth and even more so as it spreads in the regional languages. Despite no apparent cen