More pucca/concrete houses
More trinkets, trifles, gadgets changed more often?
More people flying?
More energy?
More people living longer and longer?
More productivity and efficiency?
More money and more again?
Are these as black/white as they seem on the surface?
Adding fake costs in a large infrastructure project.
Recommending unneeded tests and surgery to patients who just need medication.
Tricking the customer into buying that extra cheese slice with the burger with a "Do you want one slice or two?"
Operating on people for frivolous reasons and steaing their kidneys.
Cartelizing to jack up prices for whatever you are selling.
Throwing the rule book and patents to be able to sell your drugs at 5x the cost.
Bloating a T&M project estimate from 3 weeks to 3 months.
Hidden charges with this, that and everything else.
Moving in to make money off reconstructing a country you helped/caused bombed to smithereens.
Its all the same, no?
Slow and steady
or perhaps
Fast and nimble
Laser sharp focused
Disciplined, efficient
What is this finish line you're trying to get to?
What happens once you get there?
Its true that change is best brought around from the inside. And India, culturally, is not given to revolution but to evolution - and thats a good thing.
But I need a political outfit that can promise me the following:
And then, sure - count me in!
Its true that change is best brought around from the inside. And India, culturally, is not given to revolution but to evolution - and thats a good thing.
But I need a political outfit that can promise me the following:
And then, sure - count me in!
Our generation's version of Martin Niemöller's "First they came for the Socialists..." will be something like :
"I was too afraid to lose what I had - so I first lost my spine, then my sense of community, them I lost my voice, my eyesight, next my sense of right and wrong, and eventually my dignity and honour, and I had nothing left to lose at all"
There's 2 or 3 sides to the world now.
One set's enjoying the orchestra of the numerous fiddles hired, well paid Neros are playing on an exquisitely crafted stage (to be followed with a master-chef prepared multi course dinner). They tolerate little argument or interference that breaks this engrossing, rapturous music and do everything in their power to try and make sure it continues - forever.
The other is a set that is not inside those concert or dining halls - for reasons as varied as opportunity, ability, circumstances, or a mere continuing of whatever they were doing earlier. Many of these end up supporting the wheels that keep the concerts running, without necessarily even knowing about them. Change has already happened to these, in the other direction - and they're paying the price already.
Then there's those who see bigger change coming, or even here, and cannot ignore it. Often they could just switch off and get into the concert, but cannot. They're trying to build lifeboats, and arks, and grow food in a pot, and grab electricity from the wind and sun and everything. Everything as it is seems wrong, worrying and worth questioning. The future is unknown but the present is certainly not pleasant. They see what's happening with the second set, the power that the first set possess but refuse to use, and worry even more.
Perhaps it always was like this. But the tension seems pretty heightened right now.
Had wondered about what "Growth" has come to mean.
Since then - have read more about this. Chilean economist wonders whats gone wrong with it - and even why growth is a goal and not development.
Someone then shared the following infographics about how a handful of corporations consume most of what we consume - from http://frugaldad.com/2011/11/22/media-consolidation-infographic/) Dug a little more and here's more worrying stuff about their control over most of world food production and consumption as well.
It popped the question on its own - is the whole idea of the large corporation at the root of a lot of problems we face today? This is not a tirade against free markets. In fact much freer markets can exist with smaller companies, retail etc.
The smaller guy is more connected to the economy around him, to the people working for them. The smaller guy spends locally, and there's less "accumulation" of wealth which then gets more and more abstracted. There's more churn in players, and there's less of a need for 30% y-o-y growth which needs comparable growth in consumption, whether or not people at the other end really need it and totally not clued in to whether we can collectively afford it in terns of depletion of natural resources, pollution and social activity, welfare.
The large corporation is a being in its own right and does not relate to any for of humanity - or human needs. Its needs start to supercede everything else - and as long as its "legal" in a given context, its done. Social, moral, ethical questions are frequently suppressed for "shareholder value" (sounds very much like various other justifictions other extreme "isms" have forwarded for their actions over the centuries). It tends to appeal to the carnal, the base and the common denominator, because it needs scale and the easier path to profitability in the shortest time.
The smaller guy, the individual and the locally connected business has to factor in variables other than "shareholder value" into their choices. Their personal likes/dislikes, "what will people say", "is it good for the community" are all part of the landscape. Yes, those are "limitations" too - but hey - we're people with lives, not producers and consumers alone.
Its a question which is growing more significant in my head, at least, with each passing day. And I daresay the answer is moving towards the black and white from the earlier greys when I was "with it".
We're repulsed by the numbers from the 2G scam, from CWG, by what Bangaru Laxman did, and whats been happening with mining, land allocation, tribal "resettlement" etc across states.
Should we be?
Some of the HR teams at some MNCs and other large organizations have a pretty sullied image amongst techies. There's nepotism, and money changes hands on a regular basis for recruitment services.
Land deals for big corporates are opportunities to make money directly and indirectly - just like it happens at the level of the government of the state when deciding on infrastructure projects. Many an employee in admin has been known to build a huge house soon after a big deal.
Doctors approving/recommending clinical trials at the behest of drug companies was big news in today's papers. And Aamir Khan revived the discussion around their culpability in sex determination and illegal foetus termination on the TV recently.
These are folks amongst and around us. Rich, well off folks.
Someone in the extended family has been facing tons of issues at work because they refuse to "fit in" at an quasi-government hospital - every little opportunity to make money is exploited. Someone else I know was brought in to fix large-scale corruption issues at one of the companies of a very well respected (for its ethics!) business house we all know of.
And we take umbrage at the bus conductor - a comparitively very poor bloke - making 2/- off a ticket.
A couple of generations ago - it did exist then too (though perhaps on a much smaller scale) - it was not acceptable socially to be known to have such sources of income. Folks would resign, and retire from society, perhaps in shame. Today, thats almost turned into pride, if not something to gloat about.
Has is just become part of our ecnomically-motivated-all-else-be-damned fabric? Is is just about opportunity and the risk of getting caught? Are we all funadamentally too weak when face to face with the little packet of cash that'll get us our iPad or new phone or this or that?
I fear the answer is not nice one. I fear what we see in the politician and big deals he does is a mere reflection of who we've become fundamentally. Grab-when-possible is our mantra. Damn what its doing to us, and damn the long run.
If we really ever want to fix this, we have to change. We have to stop respecting money irrespective of its hue and colour. We have to also respect efforts that do not yield hard cash. We have to make things other than a big bank balance cool, acceptable and a desirable goal again. We have to make get-rich-soon socially undesirble - as long as thats ok morality will be bent. We have to make morality itself cool again - its an often-mocked notion right now.
Stricter rules won't cut it unless we fundamentally find it reprehensible, and are unable to look at ourselves in the mirror if we sway. Today, we almost admire it and the outcry is almost merely - well - envy.
A pal of mine in a very senior position recently decided that work was sucking too much out of him, and decided to (at least) take a sabbatical and spent time with the family. He put in his papers last week.
Guess what the reaction of his boss - the guy who heads the company was?
Questions about one's own health, interests, growth as a human being etc never entered the conversation.
My friend works at a staffing/outsourced HR outfit. And his boss used to head HR at an MNC earlier!!
There is a lot of sickness in what we call our "workplace". Its certainly not a healthy place anymore. There's too much money, too much greed, and too much emphasis on grabbing more and fear of not being able to.
Thankfully, the conversation hammered home this truth in my friend's head. "The whole 'quality time' crap is a corporate invention, Sameer", he says. "Bulls**t, you just need to spend time - yes - quantity - with your family, near and dear ones, friends."
True. Which do we do for which?
Our best brains today should be solving problems in water, energy - both consumption and generation, efficient transportation solutions, food production and preservation, and managing climate change.
Instead, Facebook and Apple are our most valued brands, and thousands of the best minds are caught up in keeping us distracted. Through more "consumer entertainment" and essentially - timepass. Through mobile apps - over 50% of which are games. Through more and more inane and shallow conversation on flakier and flakier "networks". Amidst all this is the messaging that drives the "monetization" of all this distraction, and its one big game we're all playing.
Aldous Huxley was right in the Brave New World where "happiness derives from consuming mass-produced goods, sports such as Obstacle Golf and Centrifugal Bumble-puppy, promiscuous sex, "the feelies", and most famously of all, a supposedly perfect pleasure-drug, soma." Our capacity to amuse and distract ourselves almost feeds upon itself now - with no end to its growth in sight.
We define ourselves through the gadgets that we possess and worship, and breathe through their updates and upgrades. We live in a constructed reality that drifts away further from the real planet, real people, real food, real problems around us. Obviously, we're not worried about, or driven enough to be solving them.
We can probably do better. Will we?
Here's a good one I came across this morning
Have been thinking about "growth" as it has started to mean to us. We say we need growth economies to generate enough to fee the growing billions.
Trickle down has failed, so I guess growth isn't what its made out to be? It probably does create opportunity - but its too random, too sporadic and too destructive as well.
Economic growth - growth in energy consumption/production - growth in consumption of goods one didnt really need - growth of waste - growth of disease and illness.
We're 7 billion - up from 2 billion since the advent of modern medicine, industrialization. All those cliched essays discussing technology being a boon or bane in the larger context suddenly seem less irrelevant.
Isn't it shortsighted/narrow to assume there's no other model? Can there not be one around sustainability - of populations, economies, environment, consumption, energy. That seems to be nature's way for sure - and we've sucked at most things we dont out of sync with nature.
Are we caught up in local maximas as a specieis - totally unable to see that the cancer is spreading too fast and we're not nearly as smart as we've started believing we are? We don't even pause to consider other models, other ways of being, other modes of existence.
Will inertia of motion, and this local maxima of intelligence, kill us?
I exist - for me ?
for the next breath ?
(or just because of it)
for dreams ?
so i can be more
than mere existence ?
what is cause
what effect
is not for me to say
but since i exist
might as well
smell the roses on the way
A lot has been said about e-books - their efficiency, unburnability, growing popularity - especially on the back of the popularity of the devices where they're consumed.
But for now, I prefer books. And, I suspect, a lot of book lovers do too.
For one, we're book lovers. Not story lovers, or fiction lovers. Book lovers. Perhaps self-help cr*p is ok on the Kindle, but an eWodehouse?
I persoanlly prefer old, used books. The slightly yellow pages, straightened out dog-ears. The fact the book has been read/appreciated already. Its one of those things you cannot be rational about, can you? I have even bought books with a page or two missing, sometimes, and reconstructed the lost bits in my imagination.
And what do you do with an ebook once you've read it? The Brysons and the Douglas Adams, the Narayans, the Scott Adams and the assorted unknown authors go right back to the shelf, reminding me of themselves, the characters and lives and imaginary worlds I inhabited for the while I read them - each time I pass by or happen to look at them.
I walk into people's homes, and the books there tell me something. They become starting points for conversations. They invite one to pick-one-up and browse, even if one never intends to read them.
A few books in the bag make one look forward to the vacation, or a train journey. You could share one with fellow travellers. And the kids pick their own.
I've never used bookmarks. I visually and from memory try and get back into the story.
I sometimes read ahead and skip some bits. Some bits, once in a while, are speed-read.
Some passages are re-read again.
Dozing off in the afternoon on a hammock or an easy chair, with the book open at somewhere around where I lost track of where I was, is one of the strongest memories of "a relaxed time".
E-books reduce books to merely their content, and that again consumed in very restricted ways. On an electronic device, even my imagination is in suspend mode. E-devices often suck you into the screen - not the world that the words suggest. Being mesmerized and fascinated are very different things.
Doesn't kindle my fire, sorry.
We're pretty interesting as a species.
A lot of the old world money is humble. It has worked hard for it. It is generous, large hearted.
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