INFORMATION ASYMMETRY

 So back when i was in the 8th grade my elder brother who is 4 years elder to me would ask me questions related to a historical event and i wouldn't know the answer to it and he would laugh on me along with my father but i never took it to heart rather i felt i should read more and learn and come back at him with more facts and questions. The question he asked me was in which country did Stalin, Attlee and Harry Truman meet during the world war 2, now this fairly is a tough question to someone of my intelligence which is not much with all due respect to my parents and their genes which have been passed onto me. Jokes aside, it was the Potsdam conference in Germany and after a few years i went up to my brother with vim and vigor ready to pounce on him with a question from Indian history - "where did Gandhi initiate his first Satyagraha" ? and knowing my elder brother he answered it with ease "Champaran" which for my readers is in Bihar. This was a blow to my intellect and i felt okay he knows facts, i know a few facts what next ? I was of course not aware enough to discuss ideas or theories with him, so i decided to read them and be well versed with the required prose which would be necessary to defeat him in a debate. Fast forward a few years where i felt okay he doesn't read as much as he used to and by that time i was in my intellectual era where i would self interview myself thinking Rajiv Mehrotra is asking me questions regarding the Emergency period of Indira Gandhi. I went up to him and asked him "what do you think about Nehru and his foreign policy" ? Something struck me that day which led to the title of this article, he said he is a douchebag who has no sense and died with aids after having an affair with edwina. I was like okay, this is not the answer i was looking for but i realized he isn't in touch with history anymore and i should probably let this slide, the question i asked was not factual it had facts supporting it and it was more of an applied situation which happened during the early 1950's after the independence. I had a chance to even the wounds which occurred in my teenage years and i harked back at him with saying "Oh please India was a newly independent country, with fresh wounds of colonial exploitation and no country which is in the infancy of it's governance would take a risk which can invite a facet of imperialism again". He didn't say anything and he started googling and he showed me answer from Quora and the answer was a very elaborate dig at Nehru and his drawbacks. This began an affair which is still going on in my life, i am sure readers you are now getting to the point slowly of this piece, where i wanted to describe the never ending debate of information in the era of internet where opinions and knowledge are adding fuel to lost causes on a daily basis. The answer on Quora was enough to stop the debate on that particular day, but my war with information is still going on. 

INFORMATION ASYMMETRY - An Imbalance between two negotiating parties in their knowledge of relevant factors and details. 

Opinions, Facts, Knowledge, Pursuit of Truth all these topics point to Epistemology but what about the layman who has no interest in digging the past but wants to arrive at a conclusion ? Internet is amazing but it has created layers of information which makes Clarity as elusive as it can be. Historical debates are going on to this day with more opinions to it and more information to it which makes it difficult to get to a conclusion. Leave historical debates aside even with regards to sustainable technology becomes a point of debate. Every opinion is a debate, every fact is contested with pride which result in intellectual fisticuffs. Whilst i enjoy when i am not a part of the debate but when it is my turn to take a stance i am lost in this ever convoluting topic of knowledge where whatever depth i acquire is simply not enough.


Some of the topics where i have faced information asymmetry - 

1) How much freedom is enough in a society ?

2) Environment or Technological Progress ? Can both Live together ?

3) How to deal with new ideas which are in the nascent stage ?

4) How to contain Crime ?


Readers, i might have failed to explain information asymmetry in a lucid manner for which i hope you forgive me but do take the burden of googling it if you really want to engage your neurons in a mentally stimulating exercise.


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