The oldest professions in the world

Why is it that most of us accept that prostitution is the oldest profession? Perhaps let's put some definititions in place. Prostitution in this context refers to the performing sexual fulfillment services for a fee, and profession means work.

Let's take a walk to the time where the early professions were started. We'll start at the most basic of basics - for any organism to survive, there must be nutrition. For any organism to continue its species, there must be propagation or reproduction. These two requirements must have defined the actions of the early humans. And because reproduction was never a "profession" until the late 20th century (sometimes known as surrogate mothers and sperm donors), it could not have been an early profession.

Thus the first profession would have been related to nutrition and must have been that of the hunter-gatherer. These were the first humans who hunted animals, and gathered parts of plants (leaves, roots, fruits, etc) for food (nutrition).

Then some of these hunter-gatherers found that they could cultivate land and produce food instead of hunting-gathering. The second profession is thus farming.

Because farming produces more food per working-person than hunting-gathering, it enabled the better farmers to barter their produce with the hunter-gatherers. Thus, trading started as the third.

Now, to facilitate trade, markets had to be established in fixed locations, and some humans started moving to live nearer to areas where trading was done. Society started, and the organisation of people and land, resolution of disputes, etc became necessary. Thus the profession of the politician came to being.

Where politics could not resolve a disagreement, violence would have been the normal means then. And thus the profession of fighters (or deliverers of violence) probably was the fifth.
And so, the rich (probably through farming, trading, or both) got richer (through the ability to engage the best politicians to win disputes and fighters for difficult disputes), there came extra wealth that could be used for purposes of pleasure instead of survival.

There are many other possible professions after the 4th (politician), which I will leave you to think about. But for sure, prostitution could not have been the first.

So why do so many of us accept the statement that prostitution is the first (and therefore oldest) profession? Is it because we want to justify that it is acceptable? Is it because we want to explain that this vice is more common than we like to accept?

- What other commonly accepted "facts" are false? Why are they accepted so commonly?
- Some are merely trivial info (such as the example above), others may have harmed society more than we think. Any examples from your own experience?

- In the early days of society, the highly respected people were the scholars, the thinkers, the philosophers. Today, all these people take a back seat to the rich. Why do we find it normal for the rich to be respected? What have they done for other people to deserve the respect?
- Don't you think that teachers, writers and others who works to spread exiting knowledge deserve more respect?- Don't you think that thinkers, researchers, scholars who create new knowledge are a class above those that are monetarily more profitable more than others?

- Before the USA developed and became the epitome of capitalism, who were the respected? Who are the people mentioned in our history books? the rich? In fact, I doubt if there were much mention of wealthy people in the history of the world. Why?
- Who were the rich in the rich history of Greece, Egypt, China and other ancient civilisations?

- Why have we, in the last hundred years or so, turn our backs on a few thousand years of humanity and history, and why do we choose to measure everyone with the simplistic ruler of dollars and cents?

Assumptions and vicious cycles

Many months ago, I had a discussion with an IT consultant that we were about to engage to work on a project for a client. At one stage, after establishing the costs of engaging his team to do the project, I asked how long will it take to put together the system for a client.

I was surprised at his reply that it would take 4 months. I felt that it can be done in 3 and with good reasons. So I continued to ask, what is it that has to be done and how he intends to do it. As he explained, I could see that he was very confident about what has to be done and how he intends to do it, while being less and less sure about the 4 month time-frame. And me, I was beginning to be convinced that he knows his stuff and also more convinced that it can be done in less than 4 months. So what has this to do with assumptions?

Well, after all the explainations of the project activities, I continue to query the 4 month duration, "Knowing what we know now, do you still think it will take 4 months?", "Sure? four months?", "This activity, it takes 2 weeks?", etc. To which his replies really began to be less and less confident.

Thinking that I was so I smart, that I managed to ask enough questions to show him how the schedule can be further shortened, I kept quiet for him to gather his thoughts and think through what the new time frame is.

Which he did. He thought through the new time-frame required to do the project. And said, "You are right, it's not 4 months." Hah, even as the knowing smile start across my face, it was stuck at midpoint when he continued, "We'll need at least 6 months."

Apparently, all along the discussion, whenever I asked about the 4 months duration, he thought that I felt it was too short and unrealistic, so he was trying to convince me how smart he is and how good his execution is that he needs only 4 months. In my mind, 4 months was too long and can be cut to 3 months without extra effort or expenses.

(Just to digress, never negotiate timeframe and fees at the same time. It puts the consultants in a conflict because if he agrees to a shorter timeframe, his fees are also reduced. So they'll never agree to a shorter timeframe unless the fees is already fixed and agreed upon. And once you start a nego on time and fees together, it is difficult to separate them later. More on these if anyone indicates an interest in such)

So, we were discussing the same thing with different assumptions. I assumed that he was looking at how to cut from the 4 months, and he was looking at whether the 4 months was enough.

Funny how these things happen.

Many years ago, I had this friend who told me that he and his girlfriend (both from Ipoh) was going back to Ipoh over the weekend because his girlfriend wanted to go back to visit her parents. And a while later, the girlfriend was telling me how he was worried about his parents and so they are going back to see his parents. And I happen to know that neither really wanted to go back to Ipoh for the weekend. So the puzzle begs to be solved.

Apparently, she thought that he was worried about his parents and therefore asked him whether he wanted to go to Ipoh. He thought that she wanted to go visit her parents, so he said yes. And because he said yes, she agreed too. If I didn't bring the 2 of them together and asked them a few questions, the two of them would have reluctantly gone to Ipoh because of the other.

So many examples of such happening. Is it the assumptions? Why do we make assumptions if it is really so misleading. Maybe we should classify the assumptions, and in many cases, it is the ambiguity of a situation that misleads. Perhaps we should just state our intentions clearly, instead of trying to be nice.

I am sure you too can recall cases where a group of friends supposedly arranging for an enjoyable dinner gathering end up having lunch in an inconvenient location or food that no one likes or on a date where only 4 of the 7 are available or all the above, because everyone wants to be nice and accomodating. If you don't, I'll introduce you to some of my friends.

Anyway, so do you have similar experiences?

While the examples above are trivial, some have serious consequences, imagine the following:
* Country X was accused of being in the final stages of developing nuclear weapons and the neighbours (Y and Z) threaten to attack them in order to disable the nuclear capabilities. X thinks that Y and Z will be afraid of a nuclear war, so X declares that it has nuclear warheads pointed at Y and Z. Because Y and Z is now threatened, Y and Z wants to attack. And because Y and Z wants to attack, X starts shooting missiles without warheads ... and so on...

* A wife suspects that the husband is having an affair and accuses him, so a fight starts. Because there are always arguments at home, the husband is reluctant to go home until late at night. Because he goes home late at night, the wife now believes that he is having an affair and the fighting intensify. Which means he is even more reluctant to return home, which then confirms the wife's belief....

What simple mechanisms can we put in place to reduce being mislead by assumptions of these sort?

Money Politics - finding the bigger culprits

There has been many accusations by politicians and public about vote-buying (aka money politics) in the current (and past) elections within a political party. So far, only a few cases have been proven and the guilty have been punished with suspension. (I wonder if the money paid was returned?)

There are only 3 in competition for Deputy President and about 8 for Vice President, making a total of 11 people involved.

So all we do is ask a question, let them dwell on the question before we collect answer.

Now, all we have to do is ask them if they paid anyone to vote for them. Ah... everyone of them will deny it. So we separate them and ask them individually again the same question. I am quite sure that they will also deny. So we trust them? Well, lets continue with the questions.
We next ask, "Who used money to pay for votes?" Some will accuse others, some will declare ignorance. Let's analyse the answers.

Those that accuse someone else will probably come from 3 groups:
1. He did not pay, and therefore is unhappy that someone else "cheats"
2. He paid, and is unhappy that someone else paid (more?) too.
3. He paid, but wants to use an accusation (to show that he is against money politics) as alibi.

Those that did not accuse someone else will come from these groups:
1. He did not pay and is not aware.
2. He paid and hope that no one else has paid.
3. He paid but doesnt want to accuse others for fear of an investigation that will show him up too.

The 1s are the honest people. The 2s are small-time cheats and the 3s are the crooks.

Which brings us to the next question (number 3).
Tell the candidate, "You have been accused of money politics by 3 other candidates and we have recorded statements from them. We are investigating both you and them. I can't tell you who the 3 are. If they are found clean, then we know they speak the truth about you paying for votes. What do you say about this?"

1. Denial because he is clean.
2. Denial because he doesnt know how to answer yet.
3. Denial with his own accusations of others.

Again the same groupings of 1s, 2s, and 3s.
Should there be a person that was not accused at all after these 3 questions, he is likely to be not involved in money politics. And we should have a decent idea of who are involved in such practices.

Now, for question number 4.
Group the 3s together with a list of accusations against them including the accuser. Let the 1s and 2s watch the discussion/debate/argument. Ensure that the conversations of both groups (the 1s and the 2s/3s) are clearly recorded. Whenever the 3s bring up the names of any of the 2s, the 2s will probably add on to the accusations of the 3s. Record it down!

Now with all the gathered accusations. Put all of them together and give them the list of all their accusers and accusations. Tell them this: "Obviously, most or all people here are involved in money politics. And because we want to be seen to be fair and clean, we must be seen to clean house. So we will suspend 3 of you if we have evidence. So far we only have accusations. Whichever 3 we can gather the most evidence on, we will suspend. If we dont have evidence at all, we'll suspend 2 DP candidates and 5 VP candidates with the most accusations. Can you provide any further information for our investigation?"

Let them have 15 minutes (or until the discussion threatens to be violent, whichever comes earlier) to discuss and then separate them into different rooms with interviewers to record the statements.

This should be conducted over 1 full day (starting at 8am to 5pm when the last question is asked, and last until 11pm when all are released separately).

Oh yes, all the above must be conducted by foreigners from respected professions and academia, something like an engineering professor from Singapore, a lawyer from Australian, a doctor of medicine from Thailand, etc. Overseeing these interviews should be 3 audit firms from Malaysia.

Fees to Malaysian Audit firms - RM80,000 (3 firms x 1 mgr + 11 staff, 1 day of work)
Fees to foreign interviewers - RM88,000 (11 interviewers, fees, food, travel, lodging)
Fees to Hotel for facilities - RM10,000
Fees to equipment rental (microphones, video cams) - RM10,000
Fees to Misc Expenses - RM12,000

Summary:
Total expenses: RM200,000 (1sen per malaysian, worth it?)
Question 1: Are you paying people to vote for you? 15min
Question 2: Who used money to buy votes? 30min
Question 3: Others have accused you of buying votes. What do you say? 1 hr
Question 4: (not asked) Put the highly accused together, give them the list of accusations against themselves and let them argue it out. Let the lesser accused watch. Record all mutterings, ramblings, shoutings, etc. 2 hr
Question 5. Explain that if we gather enough evidence, 3 of them will be suspended. If we dont have evidence, we'll suspend 2 DP and 5 VP candidates, thus making it a non-election. 4 hr

Result:
* A cleaner (or perhaps "not-so-dirty" is more apt?) list of candidates.
* And some work done to help the ACA too.
* A good practice in the skill of asking questions.

Any other ideas that are simple (not necessary easy) and not-too-expensive to try out?

Thinking: Good Questions vs Good Answers?

My view is that many of us do not think properly. What do I mean?

Before we delve into the details, we should clarify what we mean by thinking properly. To do that, let's have our own definition of thinking. And let's also define what we mean by thinking properly in this context.
i. Here we define thinking as a process to Develop an Answer a Question.
ii. Thinking properly means putting the effort to arrive at real answers to the right questions.

I have to emphasize here that I have little disagreements with most of the answers people have. I have a a disagreement with a more fundamental part of thinking, at the source - the question.
Often, in our hurry, we address an issue very quickly for we want to have the answer in order to act. If we dont have the answer immediately, then we are helpless and a sitting duck, and we are accused of being lazy, burying our heads in the sand, slow-witted, ignoring the problem, etc. In some specific cases, these may be true of really indecisive individuals, but most of us are not like that.

We value decisiveness, we value quick action. All our heroes in the movies think on their feet, and react immediately to any form of challenge or danger. So we try to emulate the idols on the silverscreen (or the plasma/LCD screen nowadays). So we decide and act quickly. No time to waste, let's move.

If all these fast decisions, quick actions have been so effective, then we should have lesser and lesser challenges and problems in families, companies, relationships, countries, etc. But we have more than ever. In fact, there are so much "problems", that we value problem solving skills as much as we value basic mathematical abilities.

And thus we have forgotten and lost the art of think properly and deliberately. If it is lost, perhaps we should elaborate on what it is that is lost. Let's start at the beginning. In order to develop an answer to a question, we must have a question.

Oil price hike
Let's take an example. When oil prices went up (Aug 07 - Jul 08), most of the car drivers thought, how to I use less petrol, how do I make more money to pay for the higher prices? Perhaps the more relevant question then should have been, are there alternative ways that I can do what I want to do? Do you even have to travel?


Ask for an increment
Let's take another example of someone asking for an increment. He is making 3000 now and wants a 500 increment. So Employee goes to Boss and ask, a) "I've been working here for x years and been performing very well, etc, etc. Can I have a raise?"b) "I am paid 3000 now. I'll like to be paid 3500. What do I have to do to justify you paying me 3500?"

What is the right question here? in a, he asked for exactly what he thought he wanted. But that is not really what he wanted to ask. His real question was, What has to be done to so that the Boss wants to pay me more? And b, addresses this properly.

In both cases, if you deserve the increment, you will get it, maybe a little bit faster in a, and a month later for b. If (in the perception of the Boss) you dont deserve an increment yet, then the difference between the 2 questions is glaring.

In a, you ask only after you (perceive yourself of having) performed beyond expectations. In b, you can ask almost anytime. In a, the Boss becomes defensive. In b, the Boss becomes constructive. In a, if rejected, you can't ask again until at least a few months later. In b, you can ask about your progress after 1 month.

Which one will you use the next time you ask for a raise?

New Job
One more example, "Should I take take on this new job?"

Perhaps the question is, "Because work will constitute a large portion of my life, what kind of work do I want to take on?"

My life and the way I live is important to me. Work is only a part of that, and therefore my work should be inline with the rest of my life. Without defining my life's goals, then how do I know if I am going in that direction? So let's bring it to a even higher perspective, "What do I want my life to be?"

The Question or The Answer
So before you answer an important question the next time, think carefully about the question. What is the right question? Answering the wrong question is often worse than getting the wrong answer to the right question.

It is easier to correct the wrong answer, because the question is already correct. With the wrong question, you may continue answering correctly, and yet not achieve the objectives.

Last question for you, "Why am I reading this guy's blog?"
Perhaps we should also ask, what are my objectives for reading blogs? Entertainment?
Looking for people who share the same views?
Looking for new perspectives? Learning? or just surfing to kill time?

Are you achieving your objectives so far?