Jakartass Home thoughts from abroad. Alien thoughts from home.

There are answers being given to solving Jakarta’s problems, but not by those in power.

That’s what I said in an earlier post and I also said that I would outline some of those answers. But first there is the problem of those in power.

They are there because they were already there back in good old bad times of the Suharto era. Conditioned to obeying the whims of the now deceased and no longer the ‘Smiling General’, their mindsets weren’t capable of adjusting to the demands of an emerging demokrasi. Few of us considered that the cries of “Reformasi” which heralded the abdication of the aging autocrat would mean that those waiting in the wings would seize what they could, and if they couldn’t, would aid and abet civil strife through encouraging religious fundamentalism.

The rakyat, the citizenry, continue to be instructed to salute the flag (and pass exams) by rote rather than through respect and pride. Yet they have the same economic woes as before, if not worse thanks to the indifference and sheer arrogance shown to their plights by those they’ve elected, or been paid to elect. Those that challenge the norms and continued practices of the embedded élite are subjected to the whims of the court mafia, vide Prita v Omni Hospital and the Supreme Court decision to jail the editor of the now defunct Playboy magazine.

Here in Jakarta, as former Gov.Sutiyoso kindly pointed out a couple of weeks ago, there remain four major problems (which he failed to solve in his two terms) – rapid urbanization, transportation, flooding and waste management.

I regularly cite Sooty’s successor – and his deputy in his second and thankfully last ‘reign’ – Fauzi Bowo as being particularly inept. To indicate my disdain and total lack of respect, I’ve given him a couple of epithetic names: Fuddy Bozo and Fuzzy Bodoh but now realise that the second one is not as appropriate as I thought.

‘Fuddy Bozo’ is in my view apposite as ‘fuddy’ comes from ‘fuddy-duddy’ – an old-fashioned person, and ‘bozo’ comes from British English and is a synonym for clown.

‘Bodoh’ in Indonesian means ‘stupid’ and for that I refer you to my recent post for the reasons why that fits.

However, ‘fuzzy’ could be a positive adjective. Things are not always clear and remain blurred; this pretty well sums up human nature and life itself. In fact, it’s this factor, sometimes referred to as WTF, which keeps me writing.

I’m no mathematician, but leaving aside the techo-babble, this definition of fuzzy logic has a certain, erm, logic.

Human beings have the ability to take in and evaluate all sorts of information from the physical world they are in contact with and to mentally analyze, average and summarize all this input data into an optimum course of action. All living things do this, but humans do it more and do it better and have become the dominant species of the planet.

As the complexity of a system increases, it becomes more difficult and eventually impossible to make a precise statement about its behavior, eventually arriving at a point of complexity where the fuzzy logic method born in humans is the only way to get at the problem.

Fuzzy Logic Control/Analysis Method

1. Input: Measurement or assessment of conditions:
e.g. road conditions and day + time (non-fuzzy)
weather + expected number of users (fuzzy).
then
2. Processing
Determine action to be taken based on human determined fuzzy ‘if>then’ rules combined with non-fuzzy rules.
then
3. Averaging
Determine centre of mass for all system conditions.
then
4. Output
Crisp control signal or decision.

It’s the ‘if>then’ rule which is consistently not applied here. In fact, the concept of consequences is conspicuous in its absence. Hence the chaos regularly exacerbated with easy to apply bandaid solutions.

When based on a complete set of variables, fuzzy logic, even when incorporated in computer-controlled systems, is human wisdom. There are already hundreds of successful, fuzzy logic based commercial products, everything from self-focusing cameras to washing machines that adjust themselves according to how dirty the clothes are, automobile engine controls, anti-lock braking systems, color-film developing systems, subway control systems and computer programs trading successfully in the financial markets.

It also gives me adverts in bahasa Indonesia related to my perceived vast wealth as an expat even when I browse the Guardian (UK) website.

So I hereby apologise to all those who may have thought I have been eulogising Mr. Moustache.

He may be variable, but he sure ain’t logical.