The Collaborative Nature of Business

Collaboration is essential to successful businesses and many occasions in life. In the world of rationality, what matters most is incentive. Collaboration gives all parties most incentives to go after the same goal. When you are in a conversation, if you always talk about yourself, it will not be a happy conversation for others. In the business, when you make the customers happy, they will not reluctant to repay your services.

Thus, in our lives, we want to make collaboration whenever it's possible. It will smooth our lives and make everyone happy.

Democracy is culture

As Huntington suggested, culture stands as an hugh obstacle for democracy. Areas where laws are loosely forced and judgements are mainly based on personal connections and surnames cannot be easily transform to democracy. India seems as an good example.

Beside, population and level of modernization could be another important factor for democratic system. Countries with large population and low modernization are not likely to transfer to democracy peacefully. When there is a low level of modernization, education and infrastructure system is not complete; the economy is not healthy enough that people might still struggle for subsistence in many areas. Why was Karl Marx able to inspire so many people? Because if people cannot figure out what will they have for lunch tomorrow, they won't give a damn about freedom, especially for those who are uneducated.

Thus, democracy is a culture of freedom that rooted in western world. It requires certain cultural background and economic strength to prosper. I believe it is the best form of government so far. And, culture is like knowledge, it leaks, from higher to lower. As more people get educated and more economies strengthen themselves, more people will start to realize the unlimited value of freedom and equality.

The Start of Real Education - Graduation

We, the students of any university, are just machines, like the guy sitting next to you. Image that, when we graduate, we run the same functions insides our brains, we make the same analysis, because we are created out of the same model. Maybe, just maybe, you get talent, so you are slightly more efficient than others, but you still run the same function. What's the function, the function is all the things we learn from all the classes in universities, high-schools...The function is the ways of doing things they taught us, and they taught us all together.
So why do they create machines like us, in the first place? Does the cost of creating a real computer based machine exceeds the cost of educating a human-being more than 13 years? I don't think so. Even worse, we make mistake and machines do not. So why?

What differentiate us from machines besides the creativities of very few super-smart people is that we continue to learn after our functions are set (i.e. after we graduate). Machines don't, machines just do what they are created to do, and never get better unless someone update them. But, we update ourselves.
So, really, when you finally get your degrees and sit back thinking that you complete your education and it's time to use the knowledge you've learned to make tons of money, you are basically wrong. That never happened. Why would a company pays tons of money to a machine that can be found anywhere? If that's true, your whole class are gonna make tons of money. So, you know that's not true.
You'll never make tons of money unless you become a better machine. Thus, after graduation, what you gonna do is update yourself, because the real education is just started - a education for your own.

Thoughts

Thinking is one of the most common behaviour of human beings. Some people think much, some think little. People like me think all the time, and have to write down some of the thoughts once for a while. That is good because it makes me very productive even though I am not a professional writer not even an amateur one.
Usually thinking is being encouraged, but it is not always good. We learned too much until one day we want to explain everything with causalities. But you know, some things just happen, like love. And some things, though they have causality relation with others, but those causalities are not worth you to waste your time.
However, thoughts give birth to groundbreaking ideas, though it also makes you hesitate. Back to Aristotle, "moderation is good".
I found an interesting fact, that people think more when they are alone, because their minds are not occupied. Just observing that how many song-writers become less productive after they get married. Therefore, if you find yourself stress out, take sometimes to hang out with your friends, it really helps. It will stop the accumulating of depressing thoughts in your head.

Thoughts on illegal drug policy

Every once a while, I would like to write something, my thoughts, especially many ideas.
I am the kind of person that think a lot and hope to find someone that is as smart as me and can communicate thoughts to each others.
Yesterday, I was watching the news on TV. I heard about this reinforcement on criminal law being newly put on, and some of the articles are about increasing punishment on illegal drug trades. Then, I think about economics. That, say if because of the law, drug trading becomes more difficult, the price of those drugs are gonna increase based on supply and demand. If the price increases, people would likely to take greater risk to sell those drugs. Then, potentially, the effects of the increased punishment can be diminished. The results will be differ from people's differences on risk-preference.
I thought the best way is somehow to reduce the demand of illegal drugs, instead of reducing the supply.

Growth of GDP

I was reading William Easterly's "The Elusive Quest for Growth". When I was reading about the fact that US economy obtains a sustained growth of 2 percent, I began to thought about happiness. Why do we, human, always pursue after the growth of economy? Going after GDP growth inevitably makes our lives more intense especially in service related industries.
Everybody had a choice between wealth and everything else. If you want to be wealthy, how wealthy do you want to be? The truth is Time is the only resource that we have, and making money is not the only way to signify our meaning of existence or our happiness. Thus, we shall all make a smart choice to distribute our time to the important things in our lives.
For me, I would like to have only enough money for my family to spend, enough reputation for myself to be proud of, enough friend to spare my loneliness, enough love to warm myself up when I feel cold, and enough time to be with my families. What else do I expect? However, when I devote into one thing, I will lose the others to some extend. It's all about what is enough.
Desire and happiness are complements; but they are also contradicting each other. The key is to pursue a moderate amount of desire.

Politics

     Somebody like politics; somebody don't like them. Somebody lives in politics, somebody thinks they can live without them.
     In my paper dictionary, politics is "ideas and activities relating to gaining and using power in a country, city etc." However, I do not agree with it. I think the real politics is about people, about creating a better  society.

     In ancient China, the Emperor's most concern was how to strength his "political power", how to remain sited in the throne and how to pass his throne safely to one of his sons. Many very famous politicians were using any kind of methods trying to fool people to obey the Emperor, because they know the power come from people.

     There are many different political systems around the globe. There are capitalism, socialism, communism etc. Is there one that is definitely better than others? Maybe there is. Maybe different political systems suit in different culture in different time. If nobody believe in logic, how do you teach science to them?

     I believe in liberty and justice. And I believe that people believe them at first. But just you know, it is not like a clean slate out there.

About Group Project

Group project, as the name suggest, should be done by a group. The best group working, I believed, is everyone participates under a visionary instruction provided by one or more people and every member have rights and guts to contribute their ideas and critics.

However, I found it very difficult to let everyone understand one's idea, especially when everyone have different levels of understanding. If there's no time constraint, a group can work together as many times as they want until everyone in the group understands each other. Unfortunately, it is impossible in a university group study project. Then, how to maximize the group's ability on a group project under time constraint (that's say three times of meeting maximum)?

If you are solving a Kuhn-Tucker problem like this, inevitable you will come to the solution of three times group meeting to maximize the group's ability. But what should we do in the three meetings?

Before the first meeting, we assume there is a leader or at least one person want to be a leader. Each of these leaders should look through the instruction and materials, identify problems (usually include in the instruction), and come up with possible solution or methods to find solution and the way of distributing the work. Until now, they had done what they would do as if it's an individual project. But it's a group work, so don't just start the actual work.

(1.)In the first meeting, if there's only one leader, he/she will try to let everyone understand the problem, solution and the distribution; if there's more than one leader, they should come to an agreement and explain to everyone else. Let's just assume everyone understands the idea, so everyone can pick certain work and start working. Ideally, after the working, everyone can call up each other to ensure the flow of the work. The next two meeting will be main consist of editing and solving some unforeseen problems.

If someone in the group does not understand certain parts, it's better to let them do what they understands. Leaders should not pull it to themselves, it's just proved to be a pain in the ass. If no one understand the idea at all, then whether the idea has some problem or the leader are too damn smart to be a human being.

(2.)However, sometimes leaders doesn't come up with solutions, they need research. Then, the research distribution will make the first meeting. The distribution should be explicit to everyone. People should know what exactly they are expected to find from the research, don't just tell people to research about too general things. (i.e., the target should be as narrow as you can)

Then, the second meeting should be similar to the first meeting in the first case and the third meeting will mainly about editing and solving some small problems.

Life is not perfect, shit will happen. If you work to the middle of the project and find the idea is just wrong, it's definitely not one of your good days. Also, leaders should be condensed to one leader if they can. And this person has to take care of the flow of the work, that's crucial. These need tremendous leadership skills.