Cultures and Hash functions
It's been a while since I indulged myself in a mental exercise to mix life and theory together. Over the past few weeks, 2 interesting events (or a series of events) happened that gave me enough substance to indulge myself in a similar exercise on a lazy Sunday afternoon while nursing my hangover from last night's "one beer".
Over the past few weeks, I have indulged in a lot of social events. As a consequence, I interacted with a lot of people from different cultures with quite unique personalities. One of my friends from middle school was in the city for a week. We went out for a few nights and met a bunch of people from different places. I also went to a wine tasting festival where we sat on long tables. Once there was sufficient wine in the blood, conversations with people sitting adjacent to us started flowing freely as well. My firm organized a Potluck dinner and it was another fun occasion when I got to interact with people from all over the world (P.S. - I met someone from Cuba for the first time in my life. I was so excited!!!!). Whenever I meet new people, I try and observe the words/expressions they like to use to explain their feelings and thoughts. It's quite fascinating.
The second interesting thing that happened was that I came across this article on Blockchain and hash functions by Mohit Mamoria for people who have absolutely no technical background (WTF is The Blochain?). It talks about how Bitcoins and other similar cryptocurrencies work. I remember debating it with my friend, Henry, a couple of months ago from a business perspective if it's a bubble and if it'll crash. It was interesting to get a little more insight on how they actually function and to see a real-world application of hashing. To be honest, I got a 0 in the programming assignment based on hashing during my undergrad. I would've probably paid a little more attention in class if I knew it would turn out to be so big today.
As a result, I noticed a lot of similarities between cultural conditioning and hash functions. As random as it may sound, they share a few common characteristics. As a consequence, they may also have a hidden solution to how cultures change, shedding cultural practices that become archaic and adopting new ones.
In his article, Mohit talks about hash functions, which are at the core of the blockchain technology. Without getting too technical about what hash functions are, and to avoid you the pain of going through the article if you're not interested, I'll give you the basic gist of what hash functions are.
Think of hash functions like a black box. You feed it something - a number, a name, or any other bunch of alphabets/numbers, and it gives you an output - a random bunch of alphabets or numbers. You don't have to concern yourself with the significance of these alphanumeric characters mean. The important part is that the black box (hash function) has the following property:
Now think of cultural conditioning and how the cultural environment around a person shapes his/her personality. Given a person who has been conditioned by a certain culture, a quick observation of that person - accent, body language, behavior etc. can tell you which culture the person is likely to come from. However, it is nearly impossible to figure out which part of him (in terms of behavior and thoughts) can be attributed to the person's own individual personality and which part can be attributed to the person's cultural conditioning. In other words, it is nearly impossible to determine who the person really is, as an individual, once he/she has gone through the process of cultural conditioning.
Over the past few weeks, I have indulged in a lot of social events. As a consequence, I interacted with a lot of people from different cultures with quite unique personalities. One of my friends from middle school was in the city for a week. We went out for a few nights and met a bunch of people from different places. I also went to a wine tasting festival where we sat on long tables. Once there was sufficient wine in the blood, conversations with people sitting adjacent to us started flowing freely as well. My firm organized a Potluck dinner and it was another fun occasion when I got to interact with people from all over the world (P.S. - I met someone from Cuba for the first time in my life. I was so excited!!!!). Whenever I meet new people, I try and observe the words/expressions they like to use to explain their feelings and thoughts. It's quite fascinating.
The second interesting thing that happened was that I came across this article on Blockchain and hash functions by Mohit Mamoria for people who have absolutely no technical background (WTF is The Blochain?). It talks about how Bitcoins and other similar cryptocurrencies work. I remember debating it with my friend, Henry, a couple of months ago from a business perspective if it's a bubble and if it'll crash. It was interesting to get a little more insight on how they actually function and to see a real-world application of hashing. To be honest, I got a 0 in the programming assignment based on hashing during my undergrad. I would've probably paid a little more attention in class if I knew it would turn out to be so big today.
As a result, I noticed a lot of similarities between cultural conditioning and hash functions. As random as it may sound, they share a few common characteristics. As a consequence, they may also have a hidden solution to how cultures change, shedding cultural practices that become archaic and adopting new ones.
In his article, Mohit talks about hash functions, which are at the core of the blockchain technology. Without getting too technical about what hash functions are, and to avoid you the pain of going through the article if you're not interested, I'll give you the basic gist of what hash functions are.
Think of hash functions like a black box. You feed it something - a number, a name, or any other bunch of alphabets/numbers, and it gives you an output - a random bunch of alphabets or numbers. You don't have to concern yourself with the significance of these alphanumeric characters mean. The important part is that the black box (hash function) has the following property:
"Given an output, it is extremely difficult to calculate the input, but given an input and output, it is pretty easy to verify if the input leads to the output."
Now think of cultural conditioning and how the cultural environment around a person shapes his/her personality. Given a person who has been conditioned by a certain culture, a quick observation of that person - accent, body language, behavior etc. can tell you which culture the person is likely to come from. However, it is nearly impossible to figure out which part of him (in terms of behavior and thoughts) can be attributed to the person's own individual personality and which part can be attributed to the person's cultural conditioning. In other words, it is nearly impossible to determine who the person really is, as an individual, once he/she has gone through the process of cultural conditioning.
"Just like hash functions change data to a form such that the original data can't be retrieved, cultures change individuals over time in ways that it is very difficult to find out who that individual really was before undergoing cultural conditioning."
While the similarity in how they function might just be coincidental, there is another characteristic which makes them similar - their weakness. The point of failures of hash functions and cultures is also quite similar. Consider the blockchain technology which is built on hash functions. Mohit also wrote about one thing that could lead to the block - the 51% attack. In simple words, if more than half of the users of the blockchain technology start attempting to cheat, the who system collapses. It is built on the assumption that more than half of the users are honest.
Consider cultures and how certain cultural practices and cultural biases carry on from generation to generation. They do so because the majority of the people who are a part of that culture are content with the way things are in that culture. Hence, the majority of the members of a culture tend to orient their offspring into the same culture that they're part of. This is how cultures pass on from generation to generation. This is precisely why it is very difficult to change cultures and its methods/practices. To give a few examples, you can't tell Americans to stop owning guns overnight, it's a part of their culture that has been passed on from generations. Similarly, it is quite difficult to make most Hindus eat beef or make most Muslims consume liquor or pork (of course there are exceptions). These practices are being passed on from generation to generation and since the majority of each of these cultures, at any given point of time, have been okay with it, they haven't changed with time.
It seems quite logical that for a culture to change in terms of its ways, beliefs, and practices, a majority of its members must be discontent with it enough to do something about it. Every year, I hear how certain religious practices from various religions are regressive and should be stopped. It might be important to understand that the reason for their continuation is that a majority (if not all) of the people affected by it are content with it. This is why many Hindus will continue to burn crackers, many Muslim women will still wear the burqa and conservation Americans will continue to oppose abortion.
Consider cultures and how certain cultural practices and cultural biases carry on from generation to generation. They do so because the majority of the people who are a part of that culture are content with the way things are in that culture. Hence, the majority of the members of a culture tend to orient their offspring into the same culture that they're part of. This is how cultures pass on from generation to generation. This is precisely why it is very difficult to change cultures and its methods/practices. To give a few examples, you can't tell Americans to stop owning guns overnight, it's a part of their culture that has been passed on from generations. Similarly, it is quite difficult to make most Hindus eat beef or make most Muslims consume liquor or pork (of course there are exceptions). These practices are being passed on from generation to generation and since the majority of each of these cultures, at any given point of time, have been okay with it, they haven't changed with time.
It seems quite logical that for a culture to change in terms of its ways, beliefs, and practices, a majority of its members must be discontent with it enough to do something about it. Every year, I hear how certain religious practices from various religions are regressive and should be stopped. It might be important to understand that the reason for their continuation is that a majority (if not all) of the people affected by it are content with it. This is why many Hindus will continue to burn crackers, many Muslim women will still wear the burqa and conservation Americans will continue to oppose abortion.
"Blockchains can continue as long as the majority of its participants are honest and behave in accordance with the system. Similarly, cultural practices and beliefs, whether good or bad, will continue as long as the majority of people in it are content with it. This is why it's often difficult to reform cultures and break down blockchains."
Hey Sushant!
ReplyDeleteThat was a brilliant analogy! Loved the way you have talked about both the topics from an engineering and psych perspective. Also, loving the posts! :)
Vani
Thanks a lot Vani. Glad to know you like them. :)
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