Paul Graham, one of my heroes, has written Six Principles for Making New Things where he offers the following (timeless) advice when creating something new:
- I like to find simple solutions
- to overlooked problems
- that actually need to be solved
- and deliver them as informally as possible
- starting with a very crude version 1
- then iterating rapidly.
I wonder if this recipe can be used to create a new Mauritian society as the current one has so many warts (according to me).
Reginald Braithwaite comments: “[T]he negative folks are the most vocal, while the positive folks are trying […] instead of whining”.
We should really focus on those real but overlooked problems in our country. One example is communalism. Of course, everyone agrees that communalism exists but so many of us think that it is a feature of Mauritius instead of being a problem.
Another problem area is education. The world is now a knowledge society. And those with knowledge have power and wealth whereas those who don’t are modern slaves. Transforming our education system into something that is “world-class” will take 10 years at least and I’m not sure that we have that kind of time left. But we really should try.
We should really stop wasting time with “problems” that are not really important. The best example I can think of at this time is the democratization of economy. As explained by Paul Graham, the pie fallacy is a fallacy!
Mencius Moldbug points out that the world is full of “bureaucrats [who] build empires which churn out meaningless solutions to irrelevant problems”.
Paul Graham says that “if you deliver solutions informally, you (a) save all the effort you would have had to expend to make them look impressive, and (b) avoid the danger of fooling yourself as well as your audience.”
If you know me, you’ll know that I am a big fan of informality. Tomorrow, we’ll have very formal flag raising ceremonies everywhere in the country but I’m afraid most of us (including myself maybe) will focus more on the Coca-Cola and the small cakes…
Antoine de Saint Exupéry, the famous writer and airplane designer, once said: “You know you’ve achieved perfection in design, Not when you have nothing more to add, But when you have nothing more to take away.”
Happy 40th birthday to all of you, my dear fellow Mauritians.
“We should really focus on those real but overlooked problems in our country. One example is communalism. Of course, everyone agrees that communalism exists but so many of us think that it is a feature of Mauritius instead of being a problem.”
I’m sick of hearing this all the time. Can anyone define communalism? Who is a communalist anyway and if it is practised, against whom exactly? There are many forms of this so-called ‘Mauritius communalism’ in all walks of life. It’s got nothing to do with some community against the other. What do you think of how pervasive the ills of Western culture are permeating our Mauritian youth today? This too is a matter of very grave concern!
Happy Independance Day
patriot pour 1 jour…c toujours sa :D
Hi Avinash,
Creating the new Mauritian society is a job that will span several generations. Before that can happen, we will probably see our society adapting to the conditions it is bound by.
Out of all the realities a society has to accept, the first one is its mindset. I’ve elaborated on the Mauritian Mindset here: http://www.identiti.cc/tinyprint/2008/03/12/mauritian-mindset/
The Mauritian Mindset has been shaped over the years, and although we can assume education will change it overnight, the reality is different because a mindset is shaped by several sources of knowledge rather than just knowledge from education – just like education dispenses knowledge, so does society, culture, religion, history, politics, media etc…
The right education system can most probably help young Mauritians use their intelligence in a specific way, but they will still go back other sources of knowledge to make judgments, and most importantly, to make sense of who they are and what they need to do.
This is why I think we will most probably have to wait several generations if we ever want to see a “better†Mauritian society, and for that to happen, all sources of knowledge have to be in sync in order to create that homogenous mindset.
Something has to start somewhere though. I think reengineering the educational system will probably be the best thing to start with:
http://conceptplusdesign.biz/blog/?p=21#comment-13
“Shaan Cheekhooree Says: 
March 12th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Moi mo penser ki ena moricien pe passe mizer zordi simplement parcki zot pas finne gagne ledikasyon et formation approprier pu capave fer fasse a changement banne pillier economik et globalisation.
Quand nu ti vinne independent en 68, ti bizin fini ena 1 vision de pays la so development pendant prochain 50 and lerla reengineer so system ledikasyon de A – Z.
Ti gagne 1 chance revoir system ledikasyon la en 1980 quand nu dependence lor agriculture ti commence diminuer, mais personne panne prend linitiative recoir li.
Zordi, si ena 1 segment Moricien ki pe passe mizer, source sa realiter la trouve dans ledikasyon. 1 parti population pe paye prix ledikasyon CPE & HSC. C’est banne system obsolete ki n’est plis adapter pu Morice zordi zour.
Alors, mo pas trop konner ki nu pe feter vraiment, ki fierter nu pe kozer… depi ki nu finne gangne lindependence, moricien li meme pas finne progresser, mais c’est plitot banne lezot pays ki finne progresser 10 fois plis vite ki nu parcki zot inne capapv servi nu resource humaine bon marcher pu alimente zot propre richesse
Alors banne Moricien ki zot vraiment penser de zot situation zordi? Mo croire ki zot inper egoiste – saken veille so zaffaire – sa banne ideologie de uniter national, solidariter, nou pays nou fierter etc… c’est juste banne penser, ki mo pas penser vraiment existe dans la realiter. Moricien vive dans so ti buble a lui: http://www.identiti.cc/tinyprint/2008/03/12/mauritian-mindset/â€
To BlueBerry:
My own definition of communalism is when someone ask himself “is the other person with whom I’m interacting with of the same community as me?” and the answer (yes or no) has an influence on the behaviour of that person.
As for “how pervasive the ills of Western culture are permeating our Mauritian youth today”, I’m in between two minds about this. I’ve lived abroad for 5 years and I don’t think Western culture is bad. Asian culture also is not bad. And neither is Mauritian culture. So a young person should be exposed to all types of culture and choose whatever he/she feels the most comfortable with. Personally, I have my own mix of Mauritian/Indian/Chinese/French etc. culture.
To Shaan:
I too believe that our mindset is hindering our progress. With the dearth of role models, young people are at a loss. And we definitely have an education system which is pathetic in the sense that it never ever make people learn their real potential. My belief is that most of us are not aware of the enormous potential that we have.
We impose too many limits upon ourselves!
One observation I’ve made is that most people I know tend to refrain having an opinion in public. Ki lot la pou dire?
This is what is preventing us moving at the same pace as Singapore or Bangkok where I was during the last holidays.
To Val:
This is another characteristic of many of us: hypocrisy. “We’ll sing glorious songs while holding our flag and that’s it”. Check my previous blog entry.
One thing I hate : Doing things just because this is what is expected from me! How can I sing :
… as one nation, as one people ??? :-(
Can anyone sing that when he/she is thinking about what advantages his/her belonging to a particular community could bring? I will sing the national antheme and raise the mauritian flag on my roof ONLY when all the hindu, muslim, creole or blanc, chineese etc will have gone back to their countries and left the remaining mauritians breathe. Then we shall be able to stand as one nation and share proudly our ancestors culture among us without any inhibitions or ‘arriere pensees’ Until then, the national day will continue to be a day only for the political monkeys to play their game in front of other monkeys audience :-(
Our society has an abnormally high percentage of followers as opposed to leaders. I think this is a consequence of our education system.
Unfortunately, those followers do not have the reflex to question, for instance, communalism. They just do it like their respective leaders.
Crap mentality :-(
* I like to find simple solutions
* to overlooked problems
* that actually need to be solved
* and deliver them as informally as possible
* starting with a very crude version 1
* then iterating rapidly.
haha, seems I do the same thing. Except I don’t know much of Mr Graham. Unless it’s the Python guy. Monty Python. not the programming language. Never made a list of it though. Guess the obvious isn’t really obvious until you are told its obvious.
I don’t quote others like you I guess. Possibly because I don’t read others much and most of what I say is from my opinions and observations alone. the rest is only coincidence and conjecture. so in that spirit:
the 12th march may be a while back now but when I was younger, I would always regard adults(or anyone else) who told me “Gette nou zoli drapeau” as being extremely and irrecoverably stupid. It’s friggin ugly! it’s just 4 horizontal stripes in far too bright colours that violently class against each other. I don’t know if it was considered groovy back when the design was put forward. But even then the symbolism put forward was rather weak to justify it.
… Seems I haven’t been paying much attention either. Last time I checked it was like only 25th anniversary for the independence… where did 15 of them go..? I was probably sleeping…
by the by, Americans flap their flag about and sing a lot at the slightest provocation too. there too their leaders aren’t terribly bright. Makes you feel that the universe isn’t worth saving, innit?
patriotism is like a state sanctioned religion. a guilt prod to poke at you with. they give you cake and cocacola as kids to make you feel in their debt. But fortunately some of us are little ingrates and will gladly snatch the guilt prod from whomever’s arm is doing the poking and break their legs with it. Just because prodding people like that is rather rude.
Hi Yaasir,
I guess you are patriotic like me… You feel it’s not only a question of waving the flag once a year and then beating your neighbour the rest of the time.
The problem with our country is that it is soooooo small and everything gets mixed up.
I hope things will get better in the future but I am not too sure… as I’ve observed that most young people tend to reproduce what their elders do.
the pie fallacy may be a fallacy but as far as intellectual wealth is concerned, the greater the numbers there’s no denying that some property is being diluted…
Can you be more explicit, Yaasir?
people.
I mean the more people, the more noise, the more things get lost. may not immediately make sense I’m afraid.