The magnificent Acropolis

The previous post on this series is here..

Day 2 morning was spent on a city bus tour (which ended up being a repeat for San and me of what we saw on the hop on hop off bus tour the previous day). We have learned to love these Viator tours of cities. The guides are decent, we can leave stuff in the bus as it is safe, we get to meet other folks for the day and have them take your pictures as you take theirs..and also learn about their experiences in the same city if they had reached a day or two earlier. A lot less stress for me as I don't have to drive!

The exception compared to previous day, was we got down to take pictures at a few spots like the stadium where they had the Olympics.

Then we spent the rest of the morning at the Acropolis museum followed by a walk to the top of the Acropolis itself from the museum.

You end up walking on thick glass floors where you can see two or three layers of excavated sites below. In Athens, anywhere you dig, you will find history! This is one amazing place if you love history!

There is a fantastic view of the theater as we walk up. As a FOB grad student, got introduced to Yanni.. folks used to tell me I look like him when there was the long hair phase. Had all his records and had watched him perform live at the Acropolis! walking past this brought back memories of listening to Yanni in Philadelphia!

Here is a tip if you are visiting Athens even in September. Take an umbrella. There is not much vegetation in this place. Only Olive trees grow here and while they may be few hundred years old, they are 8 feet tall, tops, for the most part! Not much in terms of shade, unless you hide behind the statues and pillars here and there!

It is still pretty hot in Athens in September. Take your water bottles with you!

The walk up to the acropolis was crazy. We estimated at least 5000+ people on the steps and another 5000 at the top! Apparently we went off season and usually the wait to go up is 2 hours! We made it in 35 minutes. 

Walking under the majestic gate of the Acropolis was an experience in itself. All those traders that had docked below would have had to walk up the same steps. They must have just been floored by that entrance gate! You have to see it to believe it!

The Acropolis is just magnificent. The scale of it on top of that hill is just amazing. Couldn't help but feel a similarity between the Greeks and Indians when it came to their pride of history, their array of damaged and vandalized monuments by invaders or war, their best stuff all in the British museum!

Given the crowd, taking photos was challenging! We did get a great view of the entire city from the vista point.

Here is photo vs reality.

Greek tour guides take their jobs very seriously. Maybe they are all teachers doing a part time gig was the joke as we walked around. They have pages of notes, then they quiz you after explaining things, and even ask some folks in the group "Now, did you understand that?". Some of the kids in the group were like "if we wanted to be in school, we wouldn't have come on this vacation now, would we?". Enjoyed the history lesson as an adult. 

On the way down we stopped at a park looking place with a statue of a famous greek singer. That place was nice and cool and it was a welcome break before our bus ride back to Syntagma square. 

A video highlights reel..

Then we had to find lunch. Every place was booked solid with a waiting line to be seated. Stomach acid does not bode well for 50% of the family, so we all scattered and finally found a place to eat! The dry heat had gotten to us all. So after that lunch we decided to take a nap back in the rooom and venture out late evening!

Sundar's Law of Collective IQ's

Ever wonder why a group of smart individuals behave in a way that is abnormal for their individual IQ? 

Ever wonder why bigger the gathering, more difficult to come to conclusions faster?

Ever been in a meeting with folks who are the "who's who" in their field and not be able to agree on anything?

Why can't a husband and wife agree on the best way to change a diaper?

Stop wondering!

Sundar's law uses empirical evidence to come to this fundamental conclusion "The collective IQ of a group of people is reduced by the variation in the individual IQ's" and as is customary with most laws, this one gets an equation:

Collective IQ = Average of Individual IQ's in a group - (Range of the Individual's IQ/2)

Let's try out a few examples. Say my for example a husband's IQ is 135 and wife's IQ is 145. Left to them as individuals they might change a diaper okay. Put them together and the formula gives us

Collective IQ = (135+145)/2 - (145-135)/2 = 135!  The advantage of a person's higher IQ is gone! Now we have no good way to change a diaper.

Lets take a group meeting where there are 5 guys with IQ's ranging from 100 to 180.. say 100, 120,140,160,180.. 

Collective IQ = 700/5 - 80/2 = 100. No consensus. 

Last but not least, take a street protest with a hundred guys with IQ's ranging from 50 to 150. The Average IQ of a crowd might be a 100. Given most IQ is within 2 Standard Deviaitons and 98% of folks have IQ between 70 and 130, it is not a bad starting point for this hypothetical. 

Collective IQ = 100-100/2 = 50.. So the bigger the crowd and more the IQ spread, closer they are to idiots as a collective. 

Have always wanted to have a Law named after me... I am definitely hoping this Law catches on simply by word of mouth and brings me fame!

Now.. most Laws will also need some line drawings, graphs and charts. Those come over time! 

I am also expecting the high IQ society to contact me with an honorary membership for just coming up with this gem! 

Now a lot of folks have asked me questions like "did you just do this because you were Vetti?" 

"did you put some thought into this?" 

"then how do you explain crowd sourcing?"

"what is wrong with the simple law of averages?" etc. 

I did put some serious thought into this to try and explain what I have seen at work and outside of work both as an individual contributor and as an experienced manager.

When I was an individual contributor years ago, it was an observation that meetings with my peers would be very productive and creative but meetings where our new boss whose core expertise was not our core expertise would be very unproductive. Now he was a smart guy who just did not understand what we were talking about. He also had a position of power. Now if it was a simple law of averages, one added person (if you can call him low IQ) would not have brought the average down.. but the Range makes a difference. 

Think of our Senate and House! There are many smart folks there as well as idiots. Okay, mostly idiots! The collective is absolutely useless. 

Now come to things that are funded by many sources. If the sources act independently and they do not impose on what is being funded, then great! That is how crowd funding works. Everyone throws in 5 bucks and someone raises 250k and they do their thing. Now imagine one idiot throws in his 5 bucks but wants status updates every two days. Boom! Down the tubes it goes!

This actually happens in all cases where the Government funds things. They contribute <5% of the total, yet they impose bueraucracy on the other 95% and slow things down. In that case the Government is the idiot that brings the Collective IQ down. This is why a lot of companies and University labs do not want Government involvement.

As for the Range by 2, it was to avoid negative numbers for the large part. The concept and empirical values seem to go together nicely. If we actually do an experiment where we do a test to evaluate Collective IQ by the time it takes for folks in a room to agree on something simple vs. time it takes for individuals in the same room to get to a solution and what % of times they are right, it would make this complete. 

Unless I switch jobs to become a behavioural sociologist, that might not happen. Maybe someone will take it up?!