tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191733872023-11-16T16:51:12.706+05:30LVBlogAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-32086106224574315252013-08-06T05:29:00.001+05:302013-08-06T05:29:52.324+05:30Identity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NPR were playing the Fray's -How to Save a Life in a podcast review!- Love that song. Got back home to find the Mrs. playing Ramadasa Keerthanas. Haven't heard them too many times, but just enough to find them magical. Instinctively I find them magical...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But this little experience had me thinking me about a broader and more significant point than my new found versatility in musical taste. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So let me endeavor to get to that -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sowmya had this introduction to Nagumomo</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kL-RJcSfZEw" width="459"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Most of it is in Tamil, but she makes a point about a key traditional 'ceremony' that is losing place in modern Tamil or more precisely Tam Brahm weddings - The Nalangu. For the uninitiated - The Nalangu is an informal event that follows a day of hectic proceedings. The bride and the groom settle down to play a few games (get your mind out of the gutter before you read further :) with the families on either side playing audience/referees and the occasional pain in the ass (I mean that in a nice way). Most weddings are now doing away with these events to save time or money or both. I find that a pity. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The tricky part in prose is to connect an/set of observation(s) to a point. I've gotta admit I don't have a smart way to introduce the subject of Identity at this point in the post, so I'll just say this :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />Sowmya's near lament had me thinking about the Indian Identity in general. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I personally believe that our identity should represent our antiquity while allowing for our status quo. In other words what makes us unique is our cultural evolution over 5000 years or more and we need to be cognizant of that, in fact ensure that we are identified through that social and cultural evolution. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, the ground reality is that as our economy becomes more conducive for upward social mobility, we find ourselves getting more alienated from our bearings. </span><br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We talk Yank, the queen's english but refuse to learn a new Indian language in an Indian state</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We shed our traditions and celebrate advertised 'days' from the trite Mother's day to the imaginative National Orgasm Day (no kidding.., look it up on Google)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We drink from the same kool aid on values, priorities and mannerisms while refusing to reference the treasure trove of information and perspective that our history begets us</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In short as time passes, slowly but surely we're turning ourselves into Americans and Englishmen in India</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Before you sigh and dismiss this as a rant of a newly born traditionalist, let me state that I ain't one and </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">this isn't a call or time to turn outright traditional either. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The fundamental problem that we have is we look at choices as black or white. We are not good with nuance as being nuanced involves more hard work often at the risk of no material benefit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, Let me explain my preferred choice of identity :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A good lot of us in the current generation are in a nice place, we can walk out of a Metallica concert on one day right into Marghazi mahautsavam or a Ustad Zakir Hussain concert on another.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In my opinion this amazing ability that the current times have bestowed on us should forge our identity. That is while we retain an Indian core that holds our value systems, our traditions and culture - we also soak in the variations and appreciate what the rest of the world has to offer.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, at this point in time we are polarized on either side depending on which end of the economic spectrum we lie. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm convinced that either ends are not the right place to be. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But in the interest of closure, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I let myself play the devil's advocate. So I asked myself as to why we need to base our identity on our past, why not just flow with the current tide? In other words, why the effort to prevent an extinction of a culture? Why not let creative destruction or a survival of the fittest take it's course ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And the response I came up with is Novelty. I need the Novelty that my heritage has to offer that few cultures around the world compare to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I need the benefit of the lessons learnt from 5000 years or more</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But most importantly I need the Novelty that would ensure that I am not just another Tom, Dick or Harry with a brown skin. Hence the nuance!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-72522564613778344932013-01-13T15:30:00.000+05:302013-01-13T15:30:28.030+05:30Moral Policing and related shite..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">There's a technique out there, if one would like to denounce something-anything, one would do well to invent a condemning 'catch phrase' - something that need to make just enough sense to be sold to an ever obliging <a href="http://lvraghavan.blogspot.in/2012/12/we-are-herd.html" target="_blank">herd</a> and not more..</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Moral Policing to me is one such catch phrase... Every time some idiot god-man or a politico utters anything half baked that is pedantic and mis quotes a tradition of some sort - a certain section of the herd who've gone long on the absolute liberalism and freedom concoction take up the cudgels with cries of 'Stop this Moral Policing'..</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">There are 2 important lines of thought that leave me exasperated with people such as these and I state them below :</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><u>Absolute and complete freedom is a myth</u> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">We live in a severely partisan and unequal world. If we can roughly agree that the kind of stuff that shapes an individual and his/her thoughts are an hitherto undetermined combination of genes, the socio-economic environment in which one is raised, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">the company that one retains and the literature that one encounters - then there are a lot of variants of each of these stuff that are made available to each of us in different proportions. Which is why we form a part of various encapsulations that include, but are not limited to language, creed, economic status, religion and state. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The most telling of these encapsulation is that of economic disparity. Nothing and I mean nothing effects the behavior of people the way economics or more aptly economic policy does. In a society of have's and have not's - the 'haves' demand for absolute liberalism will always be at logger heads with the 'have nots' need for parity in life. When the proportion of these two sets of people is out of whack and if the policies of a state are not conducive for social mobility - then the primal need of man to seek material will be satiated by anti-social activities. What hope can there be of Absolute Freedom under this setup ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Simply put, For absolute freedom, one needs absolute agreement - an implicit sync in thought and actions which in turn needs absolute equality and societal equanimity. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">However we live, always have and may always live in a disparate society and man is predisposed to be divisive - consequently we will always have limits in what we can say and do. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><u>Morality isn't a bad word, it's a necessary word</u> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Stanford studies say Morality is :</span><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">descriptively to refer to some codes of conduct put forward by a society or,<br /> some other group, such as a religion, or<br /> accepted by an individual for her own behavior or</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons. </span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">If one is allergic to the first definition, then the second offers more purpose. In it's most basic form it is a code of conduct for a society. </span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My fundamental doubt is - What could be refutable about a code of conduct for a society ? We have code of conducts in educational institutions, places of work and public establishments - so why not for a society at large ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">While I vehemently oppose the imposition of an individual's perspective of morality</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">onto another, I firmly believe that it is important for a society to have a code of conduct in place that outlines social behavior and limitations..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This is where my buddy <a href="http://rexzilla.livejournal.com/" target="_blank">Rex</a> and I differ..Morality is too interconnected an entity for it to be reduced to a perspective</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And finally the hypocrisy of it all gets my goat </span>- I <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">was speaking to a very sensible friend and mother of two teenage girls last week at work - who was equally frustrated with the aforementioned phrase as I was but for more substantial reasons. Apparently the kids didn't appreciate any sound practical advice anymore and countered any suggestions offered for safety and security with - "Amma, stop this moral policing... "</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">To the impressionable mind, the constant narrative had turned morality into something that needed to be despised. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">When my mother tells me - be careful what you say, what you wear , what you carry</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and when and where you step out - she isn't being a moral police as much as a prudent advisor. If I walk into a dark alley with a fully loaded wallet - I will get mugged. This doesn't mean I justify the act of mugging, it means that I recognize the way the world operates. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And Yes, while our constant endeavor should be to clear the world of dark alleys, we need to be aware that human nature and divisions may make it a pursuit of utopia. If we can have a consensus on a code of conduct - we may never have someone hijacking and enforcing them on us..</span><br />
B<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">ut we need to be interested in a consensus and stupid phrases will always form fundamental impediments..</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-18419795472627292362012-12-31T00:31:00.000+05:302012-12-31T00:31:31.232+05:30We are the herd<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Prologue</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most(All) of my abstract posts in this blog have not been the thoroughly researched kind. There are practical reasons for that - I have a day job and absolutely no time for research on most of the deep topics I try and talk about. Blogging is a weekend indulgence for me</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">- hopefully I will be able to organize myself better in future to do some look up. However at this point in time - most of these posts are driven a lot by instinct - fueled by personal experience and observation of people around me. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I subscribe to the theory of the grand narrative - Outside of the sciences, every other knowledge discipline is 'man made' and is susceptible for manipulation. So we've been intravenously fed people, events and opinions from the day we are born in a manner that is almost nefarious because of it's subtlety. To boot, we've had families, friends and acquaintances sprinkle their own lines into the narrative. Simply put, our thoughts do not originate from within us like we lead ourselves to believe. The originate from high school textbooks, erudite speeches, bland talks, an opinionated uncle in the family, corporate cliches, movies, bad fiction, good facts, media (both the social and the anti-social kind - if you get my drift..) etc. etc.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are delusions of independent thought or more precisely thinkers - the most prominent one's being the contrarians. We sometimes fancy ourselves intellectual by going the diagonal opposite way of the conventional view and pat our backs when proved right. This is nothing but a glorified - you miss, I hit - view that the changing context substantiates. So, if the conventional view held good today, the contrarian will do so tomorrow - in a matter of speaking. That isn't independent thinking, that is hedged thinking. It may be smart, but it isn't intellectual! </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I firmly believe that around 90% of us are born to be led - in that we are not meant to be independent thinkers - we will never want to or need to!The prime movers of the world are a smaller 5% - the only independent thought that they subscribe to is that of a personal agenda - to run the world or a good part of it. And they run it safe in the knowledge of the above percentages. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The remaining 5% are probably split between the confused and the genuine independent thinkers. It's no wonder that the Shankaracharya's, Buddha's and the Vivekananda's are once in a multi generation personalities!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So how does one separate the true intellectual from the psuedo's ? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The best way is to try and trace back to a motive in the real world. If there is no such thing, there's a good chance that we have a real mccoy</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I genuinely believe that the world would be a much better place if it was full of independent thinkers. Contrary to a more chaotic environment - it would groove to the tunes of a very counter intuitive symphony. Because it would be a world that recognizes the inherent futility in material overdraft, negative sentiments and most importantly influencing and converting others. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a seemingly strange way, we would tend to agree more often if we thought independently!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-73947582595476076592012-12-13T22:10:00.001+05:302012-12-13T22:42:52.601+05:30Ambivalence..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">When two conflicting concepts sound equally compelling, it can mean one of the following</span><br />
<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That it's a case of incomplete understanding of one or both of them</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That the context separating them is so thin, that it tends to get overlooked</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That the context separating them may be thick, but tends to get overlooked anyways</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That one of them is clearly wrong! but is pedaled for some vested reason</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That one is utopian and the other pragmatic</span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">But I've just stumbled across a conflict that has me beat as it can't seem to be explained by any of the above. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />Economists</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman" target="_blank">Milton Friedman</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes" target="_blank">John Maynard Keynes</a> (considered two of the greatest of the 20th century) decided that they'd polarize the world around two opposing ideologies.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Milton was an advocate of the 'free market' (no force on the markets from anyone including the government)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Keynes was the inventor of Keynesian-ism which advocates government intervention as and when appropriate</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In this video - </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/DYeYPcougmA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Milton makes a compelling case for the absolute need for no government intervention. </span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">He sets the stage by asserting that - even the best of intentions of an individual (and by an entity such as a government) should not be enforced onto another individual. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That the integrity of the 'self' is paramount i.e - don't do good or bad for others, but just let one be!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The reason he says is because even the best of intentions would be corrupted in the hands of authority - Absolute power corrupts absolutely!</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">He makes two profound observations in that both Sincerity and Philanthropy are overrated! </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">To substantiate the point on sincerity - he brings out the example of Hitler and Mussolini - the former more sincere in his cause and therefore more dangerous to the world as opposed to the latter who lacked absolute conviction!</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Hard to refute, but why was it that this approach/philosophy actually failed during the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression" target="_blank">Great Depression of the 1930's</a> ? or even for the current Financial crisis ? On both these occasions - it was actually Keynes theory of 'government intervention' that saved the blushes for those who followed it..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Keynes essentially postulated that (severely paraphrasing and simplifying) </span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">When a country is going through a bust cycle (invariably following a boom), instead of letting the markets to 'self-correct' over the long run</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It may in-fact be prudent for the government to intervene and stimulate the economy through assertive fiscal policy</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This stimulation has the net effect that aggregate demand (of goods and services) in the economy is increased and therefore leads to a subsequent increase in aggregate supply leading to economic growth which is to be continued till this growth becomes self sustainable</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Sorta like kick starting a 2 wheeler once it has slowed down, until the engine cranks up and starts running</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Here's a video from Khan Academy that explains Keynesian-ism</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/hPkh8kOldU4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We are living in a time where both of the above are being tried out simultaneously :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The former policy of non interference from the government in Europe</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The latter Keynesian option in the United States</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">At this point, the scoreline reads Keynes - 1, Free Market - 0</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">But the point of my post was - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">How does one reconcile Friedman's hypothesis with it's anti-thesis from Keynes, if one agrees with the logic of respect for the 'self' and non interference from individual or entity (govt.)? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">How would Milton have defended his words in light of the Financial crisis of 2008 ?</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Is there a Reason 6 that explains this discrepancy ?</span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In general - Is there an inherent futility in being wedded to a single concept/philosophy ?</span></b></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-18398186487326593502012-11-13T00:10:00.000+05:302012-11-13T00:10:58.956+05:30Witnessing The King - For No Human Can be a God!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGUFADxX_GjZ4-a7F3TwU-ElRz_KST554pj_baPbUxvuHypD6P5fZAFku7faW2V39F-Q0RTjEMZKHKGU2YQ9QHA2-SqkQdSuVp8gWz3tqOBET_JOtSSFVHtxhuX0UstBc3GLm/s1600/DSC_0331.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGUFADxX_GjZ4-a7F3TwU-ElRz_KST554pj_baPbUxvuHypD6P5fZAFku7faW2V39F-Q0RTjEMZKHKGU2YQ9QHA2-SqkQdSuVp8gWz3tqOBET_JOtSSFVHtxhuX0UstBc3GLm/s320/DSC_0331.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is going to be a short post..</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ticked off a huge item of the bucket list this week when I saw Federer play DelPo at the O2. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A couple of quick points... </span><br />
<br />
1) <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The King has a slight strut - that is more noticeable when one watches him live!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) His one handed backhand looks even more amazing when you can spot the wrist movement!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3) The <b>Audacity of the Player</b> is to be seen to be believed :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's my assessment of Federer's genius - We've all grown up playing team games, For those of us in India that game would have been cricket.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Invariably there would have been a whiz kid in the group. He may not have scored the most runs, not taken the most wickets, but when he played - he looked extremely good! - no other way to say this. You wanted him on the team because you didn't want him on the opposite side. He may have even given an impression that he didn't give a damn about the game or his own incredible natural ability! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now if that kid managed to grow up and not change anything about his demeanor and become the greatest exponent of his sport. That would be a huge slap on the face of convention!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Federer for me is that kid - This is not to say that he doesn't take Tennis seriously or the fame and glory don't mean much to him. But in the short period when he's actually playing he's uncompromising! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almost every other rally that he and DelPo built up was altered by Federer either trying a cheeky volley or by altering the angle to force a winner. The fact that DelPo was up for that game is moot to the central point. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Federer had 36 forehand winners, 16 backhand winners and 36 unforced errors!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">DelPo had far lesser winners and more importantly errors too!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4) When Federer loses points - he loses it in a heap - it looked like that he doesn't have a Plan B when his attacking game is not translating to a winning game! In these moments, he looks extremely ordinary</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5) Most importantly - the King looks extremely fit for a couple more years at the courts - that is not to say that he would be around. Fitness and motivation do not necessarily have the direct of relationships! </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also had a chance to see a man who could probably be seen as the anti thesis of Roger Federer - but who's in no way less revered :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ivan Lendl</span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQrjRCT5NmBCbqw1zQKW-mk-Z1VBkriF4sW0oAjMEaREpiVHu9OJOP1Vu4su1LxZJsGRhB1XVWljng17LdDqrMSUwIpv5fexOo1_YaONCsQTEz8sQxgDvWlKqL1OR_gKbGbs3z/s1600/DSC_0053.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQrjRCT5NmBCbqw1zQKW-mk-Z1VBkriF4sW0oAjMEaREpiVHu9OJOP1Vu4su1LxZJsGRhB1XVWljng17LdDqrMSUwIpv5fexOo1_YaONCsQTEz8sQxgDvWlKqL1OR_gKbGbs3z/s320/DSC_0053.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PS : Point 3 could be the reason why Federer has never had a full time coach! </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-56189509129571500232012-10-25T23:28:00.001+05:302012-10-25T23:40:49.615+05:30Discussions and Arguments<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I've spent a good 10 mins. trying to work out a catchy title for this post. To No Avail!<br />
<br />
But my new found realization that no effort ends up futile as long as one is able to retro fit it into a different context leads me to postulate as below :<br />
<br />
The pressure of having to come up with an 'eyecatcher' far outweighs it's benefits if the time spent in deriving the eyecatcher is anything more than 30 seconds.<br />
<br />
Moving on - I'm going to stick my neck out and say that most of us have probably been in more conversations that have tipped over from being a discussion into an argument. <br />
I certainly have -a number of times - that I've now started wondering why...<br />
<br />
The problem with cause and effect study is that they are effective when applied to systems that comply to the laws of physics. However when trying to understand human behavior they need to be supplemented with another important component namely motivation. And working out the motivations that lead to a set of causal effects is a complex endeavor. <br />
<br />
So this post will not venture to do so..<br />
<br />
But this post claims to offer the following as root causes for 'arguments' :<br />
1) The Tone<br />
2) The Subjectivity Trap aka The Lack of a Context<br />
3) Ready, Fire, Aim<br />
4) I'm here and I'm going to say something..<br />
<br />
1) The Tone - This key dimension of conversation is often understated or it's effect under realized. It has a profound effect both in written and oral communication. More often than not people react to the tone of a conversation rather than it's content. <br />
Let me illustrate this with an example from my favorite blogger :<br />
The first of what I hope to be numerous saniyan pudicha series (literally meaning Satan Captured, but really meaning "ducking idiot")<br />
<br />
A damning review of Suhashini Maniratnam. <br />
<br />
http://hawkeyeview.blogspot.in/2012/10/saniyan-pudicha-suhasini-maniratnam.html<br />
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Although Hawekeye is not out to reform Suhashini through an induction of self realization - a rant of that kind of classy vitriol should serve the purpose of inducing some self introspection into it's target. But if Suhashini ever got to reading it - her chest (in a matter of speaking) may just get heavy with indignation and if necessary she may hit back with a post on how the blogosphere is filled with right wing conservatives with a narrow view on people and the world! <br />
The reason she would do that is because when she first reads the word Saniyan Pudicha - there would be a longjmp to a piece of code called insulting_tone that would set the emotional counter in her brain (in a matter of speaking) that would prevent her from ever looking at the post as useful feedback! Again - not that Hawkeyeview cares.., but then you get the point.<br />
<br />
People are more content deaf/blind than tone deaf and by that I mean that it's perfectly natural for us to skip a couple of lines when reading something (especially something long) as long as we get the context, but we never miss the tone. The tone detection unit is a intuitive, always turned on, inbuilt device.<br />
<br />
2) The Subjectivity Trap - I was discussing this with my buddy Ajith over facebook the other day. Discussions are necessary to gain objectivity on a topic that is fundamentally subjective - if it wasn't there would be no need for a discussion.<br />
<br />
But for the discussion to progress - the conversations would need to progress through objective exchanges. <br />
<br />
For instance - <br />
<br />
Subject : The Lokpal Bill<br />
Dude 1 : It should be implemented. We need something to over see corruption.<br />
Dude 2 : But who would oversee the over see'ers<br />
Dude 1 : Why the cynicism ? There are credible folks who've offered analysis for it and virtous people backing it.<br />
Dude 2 : That still isn't substantiation. There is analysis against it too. <br />
Dude 1 : But it's worked in Hong Kong - They've had an Ombudsman for long. You really should read up instead of arguing.<br />
Dude 2 : I will.., But isn't Hong Kong a fundamentally different society, demography and culture to ours ?<br />
Dude 1 : But so are most societies - you're never going to get an exact fit.You're just cynical..<br />
Dude 2 : as you are gullible and naive!<br />
and so on!<br />
<br />
it's easy to guess that there's not going to be a consensus. <br />
Hopefully technocrats and policy makers would be analyzing loads of data, evaluating contexts and converting that diatribe into a proper discussion before arriving at a decision.<br />
<br />
Another example would be the second of the Saniyan Pudicha posts - this time directed at desi folks who's opinions don't matter and support Obama. <br />
<br />
http://hawkeyeview.blogspot.in/2012/10/saniyan-pudicha-us-desis-who-cant-vote.html<br />
<br />
The real target of the post were idiot desis who discussed pro-life, gay rights, abortion etc issues which have no bearing on their lives - just to do some self attribution of significance in their lives. However, the post came out damning everyone who discussed politics and invited quite a few - hypocrite cries - rather unnecessarily!<br />
<br />
In general - if there is no context on offer - then again there is a longjmp to the assumption subroutine in our brains that sets the context counter to 'general or across the board' and when stuff is read under that flag - it's again a case of heavy chest and indignation .....<br />
<br />
3) Ready, Fire, Aim<br />
<br />
This is a two way street and if discussions fail because of the instigator, then they also fail because of the receptor. I speak out of personal experience when I say that people dont comprehend before reacting, the blogosphere is littered with comments that have very clearly come through inadequate reading of posts and articles. The reason for this could be plenty - </div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Attention deficit issues</li>
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Assumptions and Predispositions</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Arrogance or as Leo De Caprio eloquently puts it in the Departed - a sense of 'scum bag entitlement' to comment on anything and everything</span></li>
</ul>
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This often leads to - "But I am not saying that stupid...</div>
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which again tends not to be taken well and as you can guess by now triggers the indignation loop ...(all over again!)<br />
<br />
4) I'm here, I'm going to say something - types of people<br />
The genuine trolls - the dickheads that creep into every sort of conversation and sometimes annoyingly with high voices and misplaced eloquence - who have this ability to not only hijack a conversation, but to partisan the others involved around unrelated sub topics. Suhel Seth springs to mind - going by quite a few TV discussions. </div>
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There is just no escaping them...</div>
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However : -</div>
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<br />
Once the above realization of causals seeps in, the operations of the world start making sense </div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The chances of a discussion sustaining it's state is minimal in most environments. </li>
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That being the case, it is no surprise that nothing gets done in these environments</li>
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It is also not surprising that politicians are necessary and behave the way they do! </li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Turns out that the only thing that would converge people doesn't exist in a natural state - it needs to be created - hence the narrative!</span></li>
</ul>
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The problem therefore 'Ladies & Germs' is not them - the problem is 'us'. If only we learnt not to argue! </div>
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<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
PS 1 : This isn't a post from a perspective of offering guidelines to steer people from avoiding arguments. It's more an attempt to articulate the reasons for discussions tipping into arguments</div>
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PS 2 :Although most examples I have given are from the written communication front - they are equally applicable for oral communication too</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-75546373588315943392012-09-29T23:33:00.000+05:302012-09-29T23:33:34.139+05:30Intelligent or Intellectual<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There were various instances growing up where I was personally reminded of my lack of street smartness in certain contexts.... - "Look at person X deal with the auto rickshaw driver, I was told (to quote an example) -, look at him smartly negotiate - that's the way you ensure that you don't get ripped" -in an obvious reference to my alleged gullibility when it comes to handling money!</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the years - I'd like to think I'd like to think I've imbibed a few of these aspects - but the point is it didn't come naturally to me. I guess I was pre-disposed to trust people. I use the past tense because once you become a parent yourself - you also become a cynic of everything (but that's a subject for a different day)...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've realised that street smartness is heavily genetic, some of us have it, the rest of us have to work darned hard to get it...</span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But how do we figure out what we have ? </span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It comes down to the understanding of two terms - </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wikipedia defines Intelligence as follows :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "</span><b>Intelligence</b> has been defined in many different ways including, but not limited to, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction" title="Abstraction">abstract thought</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding" title="Understanding">understanding</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness" title="Self-awareness">self-awareness</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication" title="Communication">communication</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason" title="Reason">reasoning</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning" title="Learning">learning</a>, having <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional" title="Emotional">emotional</a> knowledge, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory" title="Memory">retaining</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan" title="Plan">planning</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_solving" title="Problem solving">problem solving</a>."<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But in the real world - Intelligence is simply understanding the system - the matrix - and acting according to it's specifications. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For eg. - an intelligent movie maker would rather rip-off than try and be auteur as it makes 'business sense'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wikipedia defines Intellect as follows :</span><br />
<b>Intellect</b> is a term used in studies of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human" title="Human">human</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind" title="Mind">mind</a>, and refers to the ability of the mind to come to correct conclusions about what is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth" title="Truth">true</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality" title="Reality">real</a>, and about how to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_solving" title="Problem solving">solve problems. </a><br />
Historically the term comes from the Greek philosophical term <i>nous</i>, which was translated into Latin as <i><a class="extiw" href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intellectus" title="wikt:intellectus">intellectus</a></i> (derived from the verb <i>intelligere</i>) and into French (and then English) as <i><a class="extiw" href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intelligence#French" title="wikt:intelligence">intelligence</a></i>.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That definition makes it sound like Intelligence was derived from Intellect..</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However an Intelligent Person and an Intellectual couldn't be more different (they sometime reside within the same person..)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An Intelligent person sizes up his environment, understands what it's flaws and strengths are, realizes it's futile to evaluate and judge and toe's it's line while exploiting it's loop holes. Cynics may call that selling out - but the Intelligent man scoffs at cynics as he knows their words can't hurt him. An intelligent man is happy with his life in the matrix. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An Intellectual on the other hand is the exact anti thesis in behavior, he analyzes the system deeply and is scathing in criticism or abundant in praise. He isn't overawed by the matrix.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The intellectual is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheus_%28The_Matrix%29" target="_blank">Morpheus</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix" target="_blank">Neo</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The intelligent person is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypher_%28The_Matrix%29#Cypher" target="_blank">Cypher </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's also largely believed that </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The intellectual is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla" target="_blank">Tesla</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The intelligent person is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison" target="_blank">Edison </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But you get the picture.. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Random observations on the categories over the years : </span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It takes an intelligent man to be successful, but it takes an intellectual to shape the future and define epoch's.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The easiest way to create some frustration would be to force fit an intellectual to be intelligent all the time. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the biggest positive effect of a good economy is that people who belong to both categories can do well and even flourish. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's imperative that we are not one or the other, but both. However it's equally important to understand the percentages. </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> As for me - I'd rather try and figure out why certain auto drivers end up being the scums of the earth while some others are courteous and decent. With some luck - I may even come up with a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_%28book%29" target="_blank">Malcom Gladwell like analysis</a>.. </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-49315922697479305692012-09-22T19:05:00.000+05:302012-09-22T19:05:03.518+05:30Virtual Integration and the Partisan effect<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So there are gazillion bytes of data already on the internet and a few billion bytes get added every hour. Interactions, commerce and information are all virtual. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've always believed that the accuracy of counter intuition is borne out of lack of a deep analysis in conventional views.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the surface, this virtual information overload can only be a good thing - everyone has access to it and consequently can take an informed stance - right ? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">WRONG!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I conclude that the net effect of information overload is infact a more partisan and confused world. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's why - Non Empirical Information on the net or news has the following features :</span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They are made by commentators pedaling a specific view. The intent is to say something is wrong and something else is right</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Information is devoid of context. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oversimplification is the order of the day. The premium is placed on people who can break down complex blocks of data into something that the layman can understand. While this has it's advantages, the dangerous unintended consequence is that it shapes large scale opinion through superficial analysis. The devil is always in the details and devoid of them - opinions are like the -you know what holes- that everybody has...</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most of us do not take the onus to really understand underlying concepts prior to taking a stand. We rely on personal priors, effective articulation and anointed expertise to direct us. In other words, we are open to manipulation. </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's take the example of the reactions to FDI policy - if I had a rupee for every negative conclusion drawn on the policy - I'd have enough to pay for my next stint at the Kerala Ayurvedic massage parlor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We conclude it is bad without an understanding of :</span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fiscal deficit and federal debt levels</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Significance of FDI to growth</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The implications of slow or stunted growth on India's economy</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why governments borrow ?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How economies grow ?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Inflation, deflation and stagflation etc. </span> </li>
</ul>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After reading reasonably on the subject - I am as ambivalent as ever, but I feel that FDI is a good thing if implemented correctly. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However this post is not about whether the general populace have got FDI right - it's more about the general implications of information making us more partisan than ever. If one despises the current govt. - they are more inclined to be taken in by the naysayers - if one likes them - they are more likely to follow articles that are positive. And that's the fundamental problem - despite all the information - it's not the specifics and the context but our prior dispositions that continue to drive us...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm going to leave this open ended as I don't have sufficient conviction to state a circumvention or a possible solution to this issue. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead I'm going to state another example - It's been fun to see the democrats and the republicans go at it with regards to the fiscal situation management in the USA. While one set load their arguments in favor of more spending to grow - the others go the other way in favor of restraint and austerity. The general readers who don't know squat about Keynes or Hyak are neatly segregated along their natural predispositions. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Arriving at an opinion should be a 3 step process :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Information -> Analysis -> Conclusions</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When we get sucked into a narrative, we skip the key middle step, thereby rendering our opinions useless. The real travesty is that we inadvertently perpetrate the bad effects of half knowledge on a large scale ! </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-84309153893106435322012-09-09T02:41:00.002+05:302012-09-09T12:13:16.709+05:30Randian Hero...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For some strange reason, I follow American politics....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">hang on.. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's not true - I know the exact reason - It's a great show! and superbly packaged (which brings up the reason why I don't follow Indian politics closely - I don't find it entertaining enough) </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My sources - the :</span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The NPR - It's All Politics Podcast! </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fareed Zakaria's GPS &</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harvard Historian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson" target="_blank">Niall Ferguson's</a> & Nobel Laureate Economist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman" target="_blank">Paul Krugm</a><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman" target="_blank">an's</a> ongoing slug fest </span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ensure that the drama unfolds intriguingly...</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So this year, we are made to understand is a tight race between a somewhat aristocratic, not so conservative, uber rich, mormon republican and the incumbent, first African American President, great speech maker democrat who's feeling the heat of a lackadaisical economic performance..</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As if that set up wasn't partisan enough - Mitt Romney added a certain Paul Ryan to the mix as the vice presidential candidate. I first heard of Paul Ryan when Professor Ferguson talked him and up and Krugman talked him down on Fareed's show. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But here's what takes the biscuit - Ryan is apparently a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randian_hero" target="_blank">Randian</a>, seriously - A Howard Roark wannabe or something like that..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Krugman says <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/opinion/krugman-galt-gold-and-god.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss" target="_blank">here</a> :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"<i>For those who somehow missed it when growing up, “Atlas Shrugged” is a fantasy in which the world’s productive people — the “job creators,” if you like — withdraw their services from an ungrateful society. The novel’s centerpiece is a 64-page speech by John Galt, the angry elite’s ringleader; even Friedrich Hayek admitted that he never made it through that part. Yet the book is a perennial favorite among adolescent boys. Most boys eventually outgrow it. Some, however, remain devotees for life.<br /><br />And Mr. Ryan is one of those devotees.</i>"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reading the piece got me reflecting on my own <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand" target="_blank">Ayn Rand</a> association. I read the Fountain Head when I was in my early to mid 20's - not quite adolescent - yet impressionable nevertheless and was floored. Let's face it - when someone makes such a compelling case for something like 'the virtue of selfishness' - it's bound to appeal. It still does when I live within my head, but when I step onto anything that is remotely associated with the physical world - I find it and how do I put this succinctly - stupid!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My take on Rand is that she took a fledgling thought that was justified by the circumstances she was raised and extrapolated it into the "be all and end all" virtue across all contexts. The thoughts seeded in Communist Russia took wing in her writings and appealed to an American populace that in all likelihood was looking for an alternative philosophy. However despite all the book sales and the cult status of her work - it remains little more than a popular fad. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Former Fed. chairman Alan Greenspan was another fan and consequently a true believer of the free market. And as we know the worst financial crisis happened under his watch...!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's something inherently dangerous about casting policy around a philosophy because one gets implicitly tied to the context that the philosophy was conceived under. So if America was anything like the Proletariat worshiping Russia of the early 90's - then yeah maybe Randian'ism would have worked out, but it isn't. There is a good reason that Howard Roark is a fictional character and has no precedence in history.. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's all nice and dandy for a philosophy to stay with the realms of a best seller, but it should never 'consume' a policy maker - The operative word being consume, I'm sure that there may be several aspects of the Randian philosophy that a policy maker could use as a guidance for certain circumstances, but little else....That's my take!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Getting back to the elections : </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Therefore the contest is between a liberal who's been labelled as a socialist on one corner and a mermom who's convictions no one knows about and a sidekick Rand fan boy on the other! (with all due respects to Joe Biden - but there's no scoop on the man!). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Interesting...I will continue to watch closely...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Disclosure 1 : My insight into Rand is only from her books - The Fountainhead, a bit of Atlas Shrugged and We the Living. In fact the only thing that is likely to remain common between the great economist Fredrick Hayek and myself is that the both of us haven't got through Atlas Shrugged</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Disclosure 2 : I am not a US resident and have no political affiliations whatsoever in my country of residence or visit. </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-57772503777412937752012-08-19T14:13:00.001+05:302012-08-19T14:18:38.812+05:30Families..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Professor Niall Ferguson in his book - Civilization - quotes that you cannot have physics when the particles have consciousness. He was speaking from the context of trying to predict future activities based on the data points from the present and the past..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I am constantly reminded of this fact whenever I contemplate on families. There's a certain amount of generalization among families all over the world. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One is born and raised in them - during which period - an emotional bond circles and holds the members together for a substantial period of time. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Good stuff this, but this bond does not raise it's dubious nature until a long time in the future. It grows and under pins itself as the foundation of any decision making for the family. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So the parents work out their complete life around their kids and their convenience. There is an implicit payback expected. In the realms of emotions - payback is a bad word - but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a ....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have always wondered on the sustainability of the institution of marriage as it goes against the very fundamental tenets of human/societal instinct. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why are parents keen to see their children married off - if - they're honestly uncomfortable with the subsequent trappings that a marriage brings along. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why do perfectly rational people succumb to </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">incongruous</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> instincts when it comes to interactions that a marriage union has brought forth ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why does the insecurity index of parents rise a 100 fold if their wards and their spouses nurture a fresh bond ? This is an extremely reliable index. Unfortunately it cannot be tapped for investments. If it could - then governments wouldn't need to issue bonds..;)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why does one refuse to take a step back and look at the whole situation objectively ? After all, there is clarity to be sought in the deepest of emotional states too, isn't there ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over a period of time - one realizes that it's a bloody waste of time to ruminate on any of these...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Emotional Bond Circle that is created within a family cannot and will never be truly extended within the same circle. The extension is just a point of contact with another circle. Our parents have created our circles and we will create new ones. There will be a point wherein children are a part of two circles - the one's they are raised in and the one's they have created. The problem will be to balance the centrifugal forces of both these bonds. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Throughout this, the illusion of a single circle needs to be maintained. Since Illusions are never real, they need to be managed..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Therefore, Relationships post marriage need to be managed not solved. If there is ever a point where life has political lessons for an individual - this is it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That being said - I believe that everything that is done needs to be, keeping in mind the premise of long term sustenance of all key relationships. Some one needs to play the Objective Project Manager who's job is managing relationships. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The risk is that the folks at the center of it all may not have the aforementioned premise. In which case something will give.. and bitterness will be propagated!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the quirky thing about the whole charade would be that - the problem would have had a very easy solution - but unfortunately with no takers!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The sad thing is that one rarely gets into a marriage union with the above perspective realized. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Disclosure 1 </b>: I have seen the aforementioned irrationality in almost all families that I have encountered. Haven't met a single exception as yet!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Disclosure 2</b> : The intent of this post is not to suggest that the problem is with either of parents or children. The truth is that the problem lies with both these interacting entities.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0Preston, Lancashire PR1, UK53.763201 -2.7030953.744428500000005 -2.742572 53.7819735 -2.663608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-26611634459500369132012-08-12T22:13:00.000+05:302012-08-14T00:31:47.613+05:30Bewildered...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is what I am...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fareed Zakaria <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/APdbae3ef5dc40427a9e10c86d8f851e79.html" target="_blank">has been suspended</a> for Plagiarism..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the past 2 years : Every Monday morning (now Wednesdays), I make it a point to religiously download the weekly edition of The Global Public Square and listen to Fareed and his guests take on American Foreign Policy, Economics, Politics, the works..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The allure of Fareed's show is in the simplification, the articulation and the information. A simplification that could possibly have resulted only when an astute mind met deep expertise.Granted that the views sometimes are CNN colored, that the political views tilt evidently to that of lib dem's and the lingering effect of oversimplification to cater for the least common denominator is prevalent - however Fareed had your attention and one came out of the show with a host of information and perspective...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the past couple of years - he was someone I started to look up to and while that doesn't necessarily mean that I agreed with what he had to say all the time - I was impressed with his vast knowledge and information assimilation ability.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So this is a bit of the - catholic kid finding out about Santa Claus - moment for me! (Couldn't think of anything similar in the Iyengar world..)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Further, If we were to dissect Fareed's apology :</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column on gun control, a version of which was posted here on Facebook, bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore's essay in the April 23rd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time and CNN, and to my readers and viewers everywhere."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He says - I made a terrible "mistake". The mistake here could only be one of two things :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Plagiarizing the article without realizing..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- That he thought he could get away with it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A Harvard and Yale graduate - Fareed is surely not naive to copy something without realizing he's doing so. And if it is indeed the latter - Did he underestimate the implications of his actions? or was he just smug ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eitherways, it's a fall from grace and while I will continue to retain my penchant for GPS, at the back of my mind I'll probably always wonder on the novelty of Fareed's words...</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0Preston, Lancashire, UK53.763201 -2.7030953.744428500000005 -2.742572 53.7819735 -2.663608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-23908265140723964082012-08-10T03:06:00.000+05:302012-08-10T03:06:58.416+05:30The Complexity Postulates<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Complexity = the variable effect</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take the case of figuring out the price of oil or commodities. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a non volatile world, all one would have to do is forecast the increase in demand and the supply and use basic mathematics to come up with a price - say one year down the line. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But if you were to throw into the mix the likely hood of a war or a radical policy change in support of hybrid fuels or a double dip recession in a part of the world, a relative slowdown in the other and complex financial trading - then the task becomes unfathomably difficult. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That is to say :: The more the variables in a problem, the bigger challenge it poses for humans with their knowledge and their accessories to compute. And hence by definition it is complex. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now that the definition is out of the way, let me state what I believe are the postulates of complexity :</span></div>
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Complexity is always relative. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Complexity has but 2 shapes - The Depth and The Breadth</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When standalone components of any kind start interacting, the complexity shape changes from depth to breadth (Visualize a T)</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reason I was contemplating on complexity is because it appeared to me that most of us have successfully stereotyped it.</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TechStuff had a podcast on Dennis Ritchie and had a passing remark on Steve Jobs standing on the shoulder of Dennis Ritchie. While one couldn't fault the logic, unless I was tone deaf I couldn't have missed the condescension of the certain geek cults towards Steve. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not an Apple fan boy so I will not lose objectivity on the subject of Steve Jobs, but for me Steve and Dennis cracked the 2 different shapes of complexity. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While Dennis defined the digital era by defining the depth of the software stack - The operating system - and it's language. Steve redefined marketing and made digital devices ubiquitous along the breadth of the world. The decision on which one is a more complex problem is not that straightforward as it's made out to be. There are considerable variables for both problems and while Ritchie's genius was in his intellect, Steve's genius was in his convictions and execution. I can imagine a re-spin on the "Standing on giants" narrative to a "Making Technology useful" - which is why I find this whole comparison banal. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another example of the complexity shape change is between Product based IT companies to Service based one's. While Product Based companies develop technology, service based companies connect and orchestrate them to develop applications that implement services for end users. A move from products to services consequently does not mean a movement from a high complexity work to a lower one as much as it means a move from the depth complexity to the breadth. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This nuance has been of particular use to me as I try to figure out the difference in challenges that come along with this shape change!</span></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0Warwick St, Preston, Lancashire PR1, UK53.763201 -2.7030953.744428500000005 -2.742572 53.7819735 -2.663608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-38880138991138404662012-08-07T12:23:00.000+05:302012-08-07T12:23:29.531+05:30Dichotomy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are essentially 2 kinds of people - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) One who believe that life has a meaning and that actions have consequences and therefore intentions matter</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) Others who think that - Life is a chance happening, nothing is interconnected and therefore one is free to live the way one choses (albeit within the tenets of public ethics)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second category exist because the meaning of life has not been emphirically proved, the first exist because by nature they don't seek a proof for everything. They are wired to take a leap of faith with regards to it's existence and often rely on anecdotal evidences for substantiation</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The day the E=mc2 equivalent of life is discovered - the second category would definitely cross over. I believe that this is more probable than the lack of existence of an equation for life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But until that day, the ambivalence ensures that one may choose his natural dispositions towards any of the above categories. Which is fair enough!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Until such a time - pedagogy from either groups will form the root cause of a polarized world</span><br />
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com1Preston, Lancashire PR1, UK53.763201 -2.7030953.744428500000005 -2.742572 53.7819735 -2.663608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-22347024001823029112012-07-30T00:28:00.000+05:302012-07-30T00:29:29.138+05:30The Risky Toss off..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Human Civilization can perhaps be viewed as one mega data set. However one rarely gets to contemplate on it because individual lives are governed by narratives. Right from the point when one begins to blink - a set of do's and dont's take over. As one grows up, a transition is effected every day from the ideal to the practical so much so that by the time the age of indulging in economic activity is reached, one is rendered incapable of thinking beyond a template - The Matrix!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The biggest casualty from my early years into adult hood has been morality. Growing up in the world of comic books and text books - almost every story, fiction or other wise had a moral lesson. It was a compelling narrative. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Interestingly with age, a different narrative took over - that of success, freedom and the good life. Morality then got dissected, intellectually rejected and worst of all made to look subjective. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of this happened so organically that one can be forgiven for missing the effect!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the past 3 weeks, there have been incidents of molestation of a girl by a bunch of hoodlums in Guwahati and an incident in Mangalore where some activists interrupted a party and beat up those involved in the name of culture.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To make my stand clear, I unequivocally feel that both the hoodlums and the activists should be bought to book. The former should be severely punished and the latter should be made to realise that taking law into their hands is not done!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But on more reflection, I find it strange to say the least that almost every media narrative on the subject has chosen to flaunt the "morality is moral only when voluntary" angle. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So is Morality moral only when voluntary ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My understanding says No! In my opinion, Morality is to live a life governed by a set of principles and guidelines to sustain the societal framework within which one operates. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's a guideline which means one can chose to follow it or not. Consequently, it should not be enforced. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But here's where I break away from the current convention - There's nothing subjective about Morality. There's no your morality and mine, one cannot justify being immoral as the right thing.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In an ideal world, there proabably wouldn't have been a need for such guidelines. The world would be full of good people and 'Prevention is better than cure' would have been a non existent phrase. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But in the real world...the ordeal can be a bitch!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 2 common arguments that I have seen made against morality are :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Conflicting with Freedom of expression</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. As long as one leads a non interfering life, one should be allowed to do what one wants. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem I have with point 1 is that Freedom is made out to be all about what to wear, drink and whom to do. This is bloody myopic and hypocritical especially when one has no qualms of putting on a uniform or signing a behavior claue for economic incentives. The Hindu had an article on the Guwahati incident today where the author attributed this nit picking to a narrative driven by consumerism. She stated beautifully that there are many other ways to feel liberated - seeking the pub and disco are not necessarily the right indicators. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Point 2 is blatantly wrong. Things that are seemingly non interfering are in reality very propagating. The doped dude in the rave party can potentially run over a few pedestrians on his way home. The drunk idiot may not think twice about molestation or any other lewd act. At a more fundamental level, they can cause harm to self , to close one's or someone unrelated. The world is interconnected now more than ever. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the other side of the debate, leading a moral life can be overbearing, suffocating even. Religious substantiation of morality can sound dubious to the questioning mind. It's not attractive, is completely man made and sometimes gets in the way...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Which begs the question - Are morality and freedom mutually exclusive ? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fortunately, I think not, but for both of them to co-exist, it would require one to understand the concepts of control, bounds/limits and societal obligations. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, we need a narrative that helps us seek and gain that control, that awareness - </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The issue however is that we have bought into one that promotes the (false) sense of freedom at the cost of morality. What we need is someone to tell us constantly - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That in the real world, actions have reactions, so follow the equivalent of a balanced diet in the way you lead your life. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The last thing we can afford is a toss off...</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-79237539778794420432012-07-27T12:18:00.001+05:302012-10-26T18:11:20.863+05:30The curious case of Kamal Haasan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kamala Haasan messes with a fan's affinity levels like no other. It's like he's playing some of us like a top, sometimes hurtling us away and suddenly pulling us closer or vice versa</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For someone who was raised in the eighties and nineties watching Tamil movies - Kamal is a central figure, the versatile actor, the singer, the experimental movie maker - the do-it-all-dude. Growing up, I remember more than one conversation where I've proclaimed that Nayakan is the best movie that I have ever seen - without a semblance of thought. I am not so sure anymore. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Make no mistake about it, Kamal Haasan's movies form a good chunk of my collector's items : Nayakan, Aboorva Sahodarargal, Michael Madhana Kamarajan, Thevar Mahan, Mahanadhi, Unnal Mudiyum Thambi, even Hey Ram are cult classics (this is not the exhaustive list). Most of these movies have gone ahead and achieved the double whammy of 'popular - money spinning' cult classics. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In an era where cable television was not ubiquitous and the gazillion movie channels were non-existent, Kamal offered an alternative from the dreary run of the mill stuff, he dared to use his imagination. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He was</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> a dancer, all 4 brothers, a crazy man, a retard, a psychopath, a man spurned, a social reformer - all roles that no other actor would have touched with a 10 foot pole - and was convincing and entertaining in all of them. He was the reason a lot of arguments for Regional cinema over Bollywood were won. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was simply no equivalent in most people's mind. Every cinema had their super stars and the next rungs of actors, but none pushed the envelope like Kamal did. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The image that he built was compelling - of one close to genius if it had reached full fruition in the later years. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately that was not to be - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the past decade, Kamal has messed up and managed to traverse the reckless path from a great actor to a lousy movie maker. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If I were inclined to dramatize, I would say something like - It's a condescension of epic proportions! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sample the following :</span><br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Manmadhan Ambu</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dasavatharam</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alavandan</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kadhala Kadhala</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pamal K Sambandam</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anbe Sivam</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indian</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mumbai Express</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vasool Raja MBBS</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The movies above can safely fall under the following categories :</span><br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Duds</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Inspired Duds</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pseudo Intellectual Bullshit</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If one were to plot a graph of movie quality over time - Kamal's movies would show a continous downward dip that is currently seeking a bottom.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what happened ? - Why wasn't that leap from 'acting greatness' to 'film making genius' not made ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have the following explanations to offer :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Unrealistic expectation</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe Kamal never had it in him to make that leap. Maybe he lacked the aptitude, the exposure and the creativity to make movies that juxtaposed entertainment with intellectualism. Or maybe it was the attitude that was the stumbling block. It's also entirely possible that fans like myself extrapolated his image to impossible levels.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The audience have progressed, but Kamal hasn't</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's not so much the technicalities of movie making that I am talking about. One has to just listen to any of his interviews to realise that Kamal is in sync with the changes in techniques and technology of films. The fact is that Kamal's biggest USP - the surprise element, the expectation that he's going to bring out something different - has ceased to be a surprise anymore. In a world where any average movie watcher is exposed to cinema from all over the world - this was bound to happen. Kamal just hasn't kept pace.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The Fan Boy Effect</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is unlikely to have had a direct effect, but I'd like to throw it in just to rant on the sheer stupidity of fans who pedal movies like Indian and Dasavatharam as stuff of genius. The Olaganayakan moniker is as idiotic as they get. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Half Baked Convictions</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kamal claims to be a rationalist and an atheist - nothing wrong with that - but to our chagrin, he insists on spreading the virtues of both the 'ists' to the world through his movies. The problem is that convictions shouldn't be forced, they should be arrived at through contemplation. Take Anbe Sival for example - Kamal loaded the movie with black and white characters. The theist is a bad man, the atheist is the man with values so stop believing in God for love is god. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How different is this from a Vijay movie where he is the epitome of all good up against bad asses)</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> There are so many things wrong with that message that it would take a different post, but in the context of the current one, I'll stick to saying that in the real world - people are more nuanced. A subject like this requires a lot of research. When someone like Kamal makes a movie - the expectation is that the research has been done. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The Creativity Vs. Commercial Tussle</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the problem to crack for movie makers. How does one make a 100 crores from a movie that inspires the audience to think and not just turn up ? especially when the average Intellectual Quotient of the audience is fairly low. How does one entertain by not offering what is expected?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This problem is usually solved by one of 2 ways :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Rowdy Rathore way - self explanatory</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Small scale movies - where the operating costs are lesser and therefore the experimentation can be scaled up to still churn a profit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The expectation from Kamal was to crack this for good and not work around - for him to make those mega budget movies that made the masses show up and want to think through. Instead he decided to walk half the way or less by trying to retro-fit some intellectual elements within the scope of commercial cinema. The result was a disaster - case in point - Dasavatharam. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Eccentricity</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By all accounts, Kamal is a hard man to work with - which explains why he hasn't worked with too many directors of note lately. Reportedly, he likes to be the master of puppets which might be a part of the problem. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All said and done, there seems to be no reprieve on offer soon. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The trailer of Viswaroopam eerily reminds me of Alavandan (in an experiment gone wrong sort of a way)!</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://0.gvt0.com/vi/AAcRkB_jEWg/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AAcRkB_jEWg&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AAcRkB_jEWg&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I see one of the following play out in decreasing order of probability :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I re calibrate my image and expectations, so any little quirk in a sea of mundane stuff is par for the course for Kamal's movies</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kamal decides to submit himself to the whims of good directors</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">completely</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">proven wrong and Kamal begins to make movies that appeal to the mind's eye and they all turn out to be box office scorchers too.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of the above are in an increasing order of 'wishful thinking'..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-81810683199032808662012-07-26T08:37:00.000+05:302012-07-26T09:00:56.985+05:30Why is anyone Sacrosanct ?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd like to stake the claim for the greatest understatement of all time when I say - human beings are complex creatures! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It should naturally follow that a nuanced understanding of a person is necessary prior to forming an opinion or a perception. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we were to break down nuance, it would mean 'applying the context test' - How does one behave under different circumstances - in public and more importantly when the guard is off. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This being the case, it always amazes me when fan boys 'paint their devotion' in broad strokes. If a person is a good sportsman, he should be a good politician, scientist, super hero and everything in between....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why do we lose sight of objectivity when we admire someone ? More importantly, how do we end up admiring someone so deeply ? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Facebook is inundated with pages of fans who go out of the way to put their naivete and stupidity on display !!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lately, some pages that I have been reading on Sachin Tendulkar and Abdul Kalam make me snicker and cringe which turns out to be quite a awkward feeling - to be honest!. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My take is that admiration should not be over bearing and should be limited to respect for a perspective offered or a service rendered like in the case of admiring (some of) our teachers/professors. Ultimately it should be the - experiences of the self - of whom we should be fan boys of! - no ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The effect of the attitude is pretty profound. It's the reason why actors and sportsman are paid the way they are for a 10 second commercial - even when they endorse competing products. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's also the reason for an increasingly partisan world - inadvertently most of us seem to be polarized around someone else's views as opposed to our own. In most cases, we don't have a view that's our own. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That being said, I'd like to clearly state that there is nothing wrong in following a person as long as we have clearly understood the boundaries within which our admiration should operate. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As long as we don't let go..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Disclosure 1 : Am a big admirer of Abdul Kalam myself. But in my opinion his fan boys make him look bad!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Disclosure 2 : Am an Objective fan of Sachin</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Disclosure 3 : Am a Roger Federer and a Rahul Dravid fan boy, but only within the realms of their respective sports</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-13015748149989814992012-07-24T07:23:00.002+05:302012-07-24T07:25:02.406+05:30Podcast Freak!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Am a sucker for podcasts, so much so that the ipod touch and the nokia bh 503 head set have become a part of my anatomy for a year and a half now. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The USB interface to my car audio system is used infinitely more than the radio or the music cd's.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In short, I am hooked and cannot imagine a life anymore without my daily dose of information through them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I typically search for topics of interest on itunes, download a few podcasts, dabble with them for a while and subscribe to a subset on a recurring basis. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While it may appear that I let my instinct pick my choices, I guess good podcasts have the following features :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Subject Matter Experts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thorough Research</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Objective Analysis</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cracker Host(s) - The voice plays a big role as you can well imagine</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most importantly - They have the WOW factor, information or analysis that makes you rethink convention and sometimes personal convictions. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lastly - it's given me a new set of superstars - folks that I look up to for their expertise, information assimilation, voice delivery and hosting skills. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was meant to be a short and a quick post, so here's what's on my personal-cast :</span><br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bloomberg Taking Stock</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bloomberg On The Economy</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Economist</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BBC Discovery</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Global Public Square : Fareed Zakaria</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The History of Rome - Mike Duncann</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The History of WW2 Podcast - Ray Harris Jr.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Smart Passive Income - Pat Flynn</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Guardian Politics Podcast</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">LSE Talks (London School of Economics)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tech Stuff Podcast</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TED Talks (less regular than the rest)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My bit to promote the popularity of the podcasting media..</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-45039657134236275992012-07-06T09:10:00.000+05:302012-07-06T09:10:10.625+05:30Arguments are -<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Euphemism for fights without gloves</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Verbal Manifestations of polarized views</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A mechanism for the excitable schmuck to be wound up by the smart ass</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The logical 'transition to' mechanism for a discussion between individuals - who in reality don't give a rat's for the cause, but are savvy enough to pretend to - </span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Which explains their high entertainment value. So begrudging TV channels who've got this all figured out is akin to begrudging court room dramas. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In other words, one ought to view TV debates, discussions, devils advocacy, the buck's stopping etc. as exactly that - Entertainment!</span><br />
<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0Bangalore, Karnataka, India12.9715987 77.594562712.724108699999999 77.2787057 13.2190887 77.910419699999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-31719726739142535612012-07-06T08:56:00.001+05:302012-07-06T08:56:33.928+05:30Higgs Boson - The Indian Connections<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Boson was derived from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Nath_Bose" target="_blank">Satyendra Nath Bose </a>who discovered the class of particles called Bosons</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Tejinder Virdee - a person of Indian origin born in Kenya and raised in England - was the chief architect of the particle accelerator that lead to the discovery</span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">BBC's Discovery </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00s5p5b/Discovery_Tejinder_Virdee_Cern_Physicist/" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">Interview with Tejinder</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> is a fascinating read</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">PS : The second one can be disputed, but this is the way I choose to see it!</span><br />
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0Bangalore, Karnataka, India12.9715987 77.594562712.724108699999999 77.2787057 13.2190887 77.910419699999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-9344121782458042632012-07-06T08:47:00.000+05:302012-07-06T08:49:12.596+05:30On Hypocrisy..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If Patriotism is at the center, then liberalism is to it's left and jingoism to it's right. I've come across situations where liberals turn out to be smug illogical schmucks and others where jingoists are plain idiots. There is no generalization that works!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The problem is that patriotism needs a context to manifest whereas the other two can be flaunted on a whim. The complication is that in real life there is a space and time for all the three to exist - within the same person!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But the combination of genes, environment, experiences and personal priors conspire to make us 'adapt' just one of the above. We lose sense of the context.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A person swinging from one end to the other is prone to be deemed a hypocrite in the real world. IMO, the person who changes his opinions or views depending on the circumstances is actually more committed to the cause on hand than the more rigid ones..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>We should probably rest assured in the safe knowledge that one's a hypocrite only when one acts differently under the same framework - subject to the granularity of the evaluation of the framework.</i></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0Bangalore, Karnataka, India12.9715987 77.594562712.724026199999999 77.2787057 13.2191712 77.910419699999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-40330616838805835042012-06-30T22:59:00.001+05:302012-06-30T23:00:53.417+05:30The Sociological Flip : What if we Earned to Learn ?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The first chain reaction was not a chemical but a sociological one..</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It was probably triggered when the first human decided to trade his wheel for a spear or food or some such. Ever since that point, economic activity - which is the movement and trade of goods and services have been at the epicenter of human interactions shaping human behavior along the way. Sure, there has been religion, the perspective from knowledge,life : joy and suffering etc. - but economics comes as close to a root cause for why we get up in the morning and decide to tolerate each other over the rest of the day. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If economic activity was a nuclear fission reaction, it received it's equivalent of particle accelerators post Adam Smith's discovery of the "The Invisible Hand of the Market" and consequently Laissez Faire Capitalism. The result has been 200 years of blinding progress in technological discoveries, medical innovation and economic governance amongst other things. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The fallibility of the reaction has been brought to bear on us with every war, financial/economical breakdowns and natural disasters. But again at the core lies it's effect on human behavior. Vested Interests drive an increasingly polarized world. Politics trumps every morally sensible perspective and is besotted by people with a manipulative bent of mind. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">That said, It's definitely not my intent to spend a post ranting on status quo, but what I wanted to do was imagine a different spin in the scheme of things - what if the chain reaction still existed for a different reason..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">At the risk of oversimplication : If we look at the constituents of the aforementioned sociological reaction closely, we would see the following -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>enter life</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">3 years of learning to walk and talk</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">15 years of knowledge gathering - educating ourselves</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">enter the reaction (of economic activity) and churn for the next 40 years</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">exit the reaction - period of dormancy for 25 years</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>exit life</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In the current 'system' - knowledge gathering is a means to an end - which in turn is an entry into the economic system and little else. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My curiosity lies in imagining a situation wherein the economic churn was a means to another end. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">What if we could change the template slightly :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>enter life</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">3 years of learning to walk and talk</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">15 years of knowledge gathering</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">enter the reaction (of economic activity) and churn for the next 40 years</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">exit the reaction - <b><span style="color: blue;">15 years of knowledge gathering for the sake of knowledge</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">10 years of dormancy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>exit life</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This would preclude a longer life, but that <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ActiveAging/humans-live-longer-2050-scientists-predict/story?id=9330511#.T-8cJbUtiLg" target="_blank">appears to be given</a> short of something cataclysmic in the near future. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If gaining knowledge was placed at the peak of human achievement as opposed to gaining wealth, human interaction should be far more pleasant, shouldn't it ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Think about it - The scientist is the guy to be, not the CEO. Cracking the String theory is the aspiration to have as opposed to buying the mercedes.The Ipad would be created and bought for a specific reason. Social status symbols would cease to exist. Knowledge and Wisdom would form the new materials of desire. Therefore discrimination (as we know it today) would cease to exist - no polarization, no need for politics - the theoritical possibilities should be endless. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But there should be a flip side - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The economics of the world would drastically be changed. It would have to be reinvented to cater for a very pragmatic consumer base with a different purpose to exist - which would be to extend the collective human knowledge of figuring out itself and the universe in which it exists. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It would take a lot more thought to try and imagine that scenario, but a plausible effect would be a more economically slower world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's hard to imagine the nuances and the challenges of such a world - but I'd like to think that it as a world with both the human and the higher purpose.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I'm sure that quite a few of us have felt that if only we had that financial stability for the next 20 years, we'd probably be able to dedicate a couple of decades to figuring out/doing something for the sake of it. Maybe some of us should try and hopefully succeed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">PS : The knowledge gathering that I speak about is not constrained to academic pursuits. It could very well include something like a travelogue resulting from touring the world. Essentially doing something with the purpose of a deeper understanding of that 'something' as the sole purpose!</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com1Grant Rd, Sampangi Rama Nagar, Bangalore, Karnataka, India12.9715987 77.594562712.724026199999999 77.2787057 13.2191712 77.910419699999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-36738583129730243382012-06-27T22:23:00.000+05:302012-06-27T22:25:04.027+05:30The Problem with Rhetoric<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">is that </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">it can be made to sound right...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When Greig says thus :</span><br />
<br />
<div style="color: blue; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<i>"We can huff and puff as much as we like and have all sorts of external
reports but this situation can only be resolved by India accepting that
the spirit of cricket is more important than generating billions of
dollars; it's more important than turning out multimillionaire players;
and it's more important than getting square with Australia and England
for their bully-boy tactics towards India over the years."</i></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I don't intend to play contrarian and am sorta approaching this as a statement up there for validation...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So, why would generating billions of dollars be less important than holding up the spirit of cricket ?</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">How can Greig be so sure of that priority ? Vantage Point, I reckon..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In a toss off between a billion dollars and something like a 'spirit of anything..' the former is naturally vilified.., maybe that is justified under some contexts, but the operative phrase is '</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">under some contexts'. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Think about it - </span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Billions of Dollars generated by the BCCI would preclude - </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Millions of dollars of tax money</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Innovation and some sorta progress..</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">More money back into the development of the game and it's practitioners etc. etc.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So why should that be of any lesser precedence to a set of morals that are no doubt important but are merely contextual.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">If we tilt the moral prism - As the governing body of a sport in a country that houses it's most loyal and passionate fans the BCCI's moral obligations should be foremost to check all the bullet points above including the etc. - which stems from generating billions of dollars. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">While, the spirit of cricket sounds like the right thing to do, I have a problem when it's made to sound mutually exclusive from generating billions - on the contrary for the spirit to be taken more seriously just pay the players big money! Don't believe me, Ask Symonds and our resident ding-a-ling Bhajji..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Tony's statement makes apparent the fundamental futility of rhetoric that pits morals against the real world .. even from an argument perspective - in that morality should not be a part of the comparison as much as it should be a part of the entities that are being compared..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In short I think his 'more important' assertion is either dumb or spiteful - Take your pick!</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0Bangalore, Karnataka, India12.9715987 77.594562712.724026199999999 77.2787057 13.2191712 77.910419699999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-70704430926416987182012-06-26T10:21:00.000+05:302012-06-26T11:10:57.825+05:30The Few Great Men..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Currently reading the </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/mc2-Biography-Worlds-Famous-Equation/dp/0425181642" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">biography of an equation [law of conservation of energy - e=mc2]</a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A few thoughts running through my head -</span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">It's only now that I'm able to appreciate the radical implications of theoritical physics. I'm wondering if there are people like me who probably understood the equation and dismissed it once it ceased to be of academic use. I'm sure there are, I'm thinking maybe we are an overwhelming majority. Especially in a society that's wired to think of knowledge as a means to a prescribed end.</span><span style="background-color: white;">Also, Sheldon Cooper is a valid personification of a condescending theoritical physics genius. </span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">What would it have been to live in a world where the fundamental concepts had to be defined, understood and their relationships worked out. Energy, Mass, Speed, Acceleration, Friction...</span><span style="background-color: white;">We live in a world where the foundations have been built and the ingenuity lies in developing concepts, information, appliances, devices over them..</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">For most of human history, the practicals have preceded the theory. We discovered the fire and used it practically, before we understood the concepts of heat, temperature and heat-mass transfer. It's plausible that only in the last 2 centuries - with the backing of a sound knowledge base, we have flipped that approach to theory before practicals. Which makes the works in physics and science a lot more profound - <b><i><span style="color: blue;">Our current world has been shaped by an increasingly small set of individuals who were motivated to find out the inner trappings of how things worked - even though they already worked</span></i></b>. If we were to 'dramatically' extrapolate that capability to a sufficient set of humans - maybe figuring out the complete universe and creating a new one isn't really out of bounds! And here's where another realization dawns - The Pioneers will always be a small no. - otherwise there wouldn't be any pioneers, would there ?</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">The most complex concepts began with the most simple experiments. To evaluate the speed of light - Galileo proposed that two men with lanterns be stationed at the crests of a plateau and that the lanterns be raised at the same time to figure out how long the light took to reach the other side. (It didn't quite work, but the point remains..).</span><span style="background-color: white;">In order to prove that the energy of a moving particle is not just mass*velocity (mv), but mv(square), Williem Gravesande let weights of a known mass plummet onto a clay floor. He noted that a mass going down with twice the speed sank 4 times deeper - square of the velocity. First principles in the truest sense of the word..</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">In an evaluation system - what should be considered more valuable ? Coming up with a core concept or </span><span style="background-color: white;">realizing</span><span style="background-color: white;"> it's implication in a practical application ? It's clear that the application precludes the
concept, but it is equally true that the concept is devoid of meaning without it's application for the better or worse of humanity..</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Lastly, where are our own
medieval Indian theoritical physicists and scientists ? That's what I intend to pursue sometime soon...</span></span></li>
</ul>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15044162197813601100noreply@blogger.com0Bangalore, Karnataka, India12.9715987 77.594562712.724026199999999 77.2787057 13.2191712 77.910419699999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-86586173133216038612012-06-23T23:38:00.001+05:302012-06-24T00:06:59.615+05:30The Colosseum and The Temple<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The Scottish Historian Niall Ferguson amongst others has tried to outline the root cause for the domination of the west over the rest over the past 5 centuries. In his latest book, Civilization, Professor Ferguson puts down the reasons for Western domination to '6 killer apps', summarized as below:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">1. <b>Competition</b>: a decentralisation of political and economic life, which created the launch pad for both nation states and capitalism.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">2. <b>Science</b>: a way of understanding and ultimately changing the natural world, which gave the West (among other things) a major military advantage over the Rest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">3. <b>Property rights</b>: the rule of law as a means of protecting private owners and peacefully resolving disputes between them, which formed the basis for the most stable form of representative government.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">4. <b>Medicine</b>: a branch of science that allowed a major improvement in health and life expectancy, beginning in Western societies, but also in their colonies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">5. <b>The consumer society</b>: a mode of material living in which the production and purchase of clothing and other consumer goods play a central economic role, and without which the Industrial Revolution would have been unsustainable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">6. <b>The work ethic</b>: a moral framework and mode of activity derivable from (among other sources) Protestant Christianity, which provides the glue for the dynamic and potentially unstable society created by apps 1 to 5.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I haven't read the book yet, but instinctively I do not feel these causes could possibly represent the root. Typically you've arrived at the root cause once you have eliminated "<b>all the 'Why's</b>" - and the above 'apps' still beg the question - Why were they developed in the west and not the east? Also, for analyzing human behavior over a period of time - History may provide the data points, but they need to be analyzed by historians, anthropologists, genetic experts (for want of a better word) etc. The real root would probably arise through the juxtaposition of multiple views. And most importantly, the causal would need to lie on both sides that are being compared. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">But I should really save the questions for - After I have read the book.</span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Detour Ahead -</b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Personally, All Literature seems to lead to Rome these days, after thoroughly enjoying a 'first' listen of Mike Duncan's wonderful podcast series - </span><a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-history-of-rome/id261654474" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The History of Rome</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> - I chanced upon National Geographic's series on - </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4_35J5tvjs&noredirect=1" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;" target="_blank">When Rome Ruled</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> - and as is the norm broke my self imposed 2 year curfew for buying books or DVDs.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The first episode was on - The Colosseum - that historical and engineering marvel of Roman and Western history. Sanctioned by </span><a href="http://www.roman-colosseum.info/colosseum/emperors-and-the-colosseum.htm" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;" target="_blank">Vespasian and completed by Titus</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> who presided over the inaugural games, they marked the beginning of sports entertainment as we know it today. </span><br />
<b style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Back on main street -</b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">And, this </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">colossus</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> of a monument probably offers a few clues for the west vs. rest debate</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;">The Colosseum was constructed for the sole purpose of holding a spectacle for the people. Not just a spectacle, but a "what the friggin hey" spectacle..</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>But Why?</b> Partly because the Romans could, partly to differentiate themselves from the rest of the world but mostly because the emperors needed to garner the support of the public</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>But why a spectacle?</b> They figured, What better way to capture the collective imagination of the populace at large than giving them a show that literally and metaphorically blew them away, at it's core stimulated their primal instinct and offered them their escape from their dreary life. Bread and Circuses was the Television of the Roman world. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>Cool, so how did this reflect the roman society in general?</b> :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The Romans sought this escape and their emperors were more than inclined to give it to them. But, rather strangely - This demand and supply fueled advances in engineering and even science. To quote an example - The trap doors of the Roman stadiums that magically lead gladiators and wild animals onto the grounds were probably the ancestors of the 'modern lifts'. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>The Law of Unintended consequences operates in weird ways! </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>Turns out that, Ayn Rand does not offer the greatest substantiation for the vested interest of man, history does!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Further, the masses wanted to be entertained and entertainment was costly which meant money needed to be raised and so Vespasian looted Spain. In other words, Another consequence of bread and circuses were conquests. The only way the Romans could sustain their kind of life was by looting others.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">All of these activities : Power/Legacy Seekers->Bread & Circus->Money->Conquests->Empire Growth->More Power Seekers->....</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">repeated over centuries generating scientific and technological progress almost as a byproduct. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDD_b1hJZJUwaxzWWOGjx82gp28-JB1WGKgicL45AsAxTsK5NudyCA6BRNe7vIwt3nvj_TexuOp52OO_4ZMSzKKjyWkPYGvrrMxLjFWl5RGdXd_OS2KZKZB05BsYhpYsn-PZZ9IA/s1600/Colosseum_Temple.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDD_b1hJZJUwaxzWWOGjx82gp28-JB1WGKgicL45AsAxTsK5NudyCA6BRNe7vIwt3nvj_TexuOp52OO_4ZMSzKKjyWkPYGvrrMxLjFWl5RGdXd_OS2KZKZB05BsYhpYsn-PZZ9IA/s320/Colosseum_Temple.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">In contrast, progress in the east seems to have centered around religion and spirituality. Which explains our own beautiful structures all being temples other places of worship.The likes of these would have required as high an engineering acumen as any other monument out there. But the onus was firmly on conformity, on the sanctity of the sanctum sanctorum. Philosophy and literature prescribed a way of life as opposed to let it evolve organically. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">That being said - I don't necessarily look at how things have played out in the east as regressing and bad. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">If I were to honestly answer the question - How would the world have shaped up if the east had dwelt on the west ? - I would say that we would have been a few centuries (atleast) behind the current levels of progress. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">But the jury would still be out when it came to the question of - Would we all be leading more fulfilling lives ?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Having a choice shouldn't necessarily mean either-or, the more appropriate solution is probably in the mix.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">PS 1: The Romans were deeply religious people too. As Mike Duncan surmises - They started out off as Latin Speaking Pagans and thanks largely to Constantine ended up being Greek speaking Christians. Numerous temples for Apollo and Jupiter and churches like the famous St. Paul's cathedral were all constructed by them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The fundamental difference probably was that it was not as central to their life as it was to our own ancestors or that they had multiple drivers..</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">PS 2: As is easy to gather, I am no historian. But I am inquisitive. I'd like to think of this post as one that raises questions as opposed to answering them</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Bangalore, Karnataka, India12.9715987 77.594562712.724026199999999 77.2787057 13.2191712 77.910419699999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19173387.post-28942097163088694912012-06-22T09:37:00.000+05:302012-06-22T09:44:35.238+05:30Where's the Allure in Gluttony ?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Everyday I come across some piece of information that puts my <a href="http://lvraghavan.blogspot.in/2012/06/when-counter-intuition-trumps-common.html">Counter Intuition</a> observation into the Confucian league. Yesterday was no exception -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In 2008 The US President Bush ruffled a few feathers here in India when he claimed that there could be a food crisis because Indian and Chinese are consuming more owing to prosperity...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The claim was strongly refuted through a bunch of statistics like the one below :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Each Indian gets to eat about 178 kg of grain in a year, while a US citizen consumes 1,046 kg."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">And the issue fizzled out after providing all concerned their 5 mins. slot of fame. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">However, the <b>NPR Topics:Business</b> podcast ran an introduction to a study yesterday that fetched the above information back into main memory - </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/06/20/155411564/study-fat-people-burden-earths-resources">Study: Fat People Burden Earth's Resources</a></h1>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">The following bits of information were interesting - (paraphrased slightly)</span><br />
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<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The number of humans on the planet is now more than seven billion. And our total weight is 287 million tons</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">North Americans are the heaviest - and while they make up 6 percent of the population of the Earth, their obesity rate is such that they make up a third of all the excess weight.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">If every country in the world had the same body mass index distribution as the United States, in mass terms it would be like having an extra billion people in the world</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Wherever gasoline is cheap, it is over-consumed, not only is it bad for the environment, but <b>instead of using food energy for human movement, gasoline is used and the extra food energy gets stored within</b>..</span></li>
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<span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">This post is not about repartee, the US and the developed western countries have been at the forefront of shaping the modern world and deserve their prosperity which reflects (among-st several other ways) in their citizens being well fed. This is also not about the concern of obesity in rich countries - that's a problem with sufficient awareness among everyone concerned.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">This is more about the possibility of us in the "developing world" migrating towards the same fate. Convenience is probably the largest market out there and has churned out automobiles, air conditions, electronic gadgets and the virtual world. While this is all good, it probably has blindsided us to the fall-out or the flip side.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><b>When we eat more, we should work more is a simple and fundamental assertion</b>. The flip-side of the simplicity is that it is easy to violate without even realizing it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Typically, things that appeal to the eyes, ears take over the blood supply to the mind - so while it is really nice for us to have that car, house, fancy restaurant, club and travel access that our parents never had, it would probably be useful to "retain" a little bit of our own old world order if it means :</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Defer cars and bikes for distances more than - let's say - 3 kms</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Actually getting down to doing household chores in the weekend</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Eat Intelligently - Plan the junk food intake etc. etc.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">i.e find the sweet spot of balance between splurging for convenience and sweating for it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">[</span><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is more significant in light of a recent study that the Huffington Post published which alluded to the fact that exercising on the side is driven more by will than by necessity - which means that serial exercisers do it because they like it and not because their health demands it. Which pretty much rules it out as an option to use up our food energy for many of us</span></i><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">]</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">The good news is that we have that choice, but the bad news is that it's a hard sell even to ourselves in private - we naturally look westward for everything and this could mean that we end up taking the bad with the good. The trick is to look and validate and adapt... - but if only it were that easy! <b><i>Maybe picturing ourselves at the top of the charts of the most Obese nations in the next decade may help..</i></b> :(</span></span></div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Grant Rd, Sampangi Rama Nagar, Bangalore, Karnataka, India12.9715987 77.594562712.724026199999999 77.2787057 13.2191712 77.910419699999991