Reflections
This is the time of the year when everyone becomes an expert on climate, and realizes how much additional emissions are released because of the Conference of Parties (COP)! #climateaction #ClimateCatastrophe #COP29Baku
Recently, I have been more vocal in calling spade a spade when it comes to people spreading hate, bigotry and exclusionism.
I might not change their mind but at least make it clear that I do not like it and my silence should not be used as a tacit approval.
And, I have seen this working.. I get to hear less of this unpleasant nonsense and have less of these people around.
IPLPlayOffs The IPL broadcast is full of ads of sin products (gambling, paan masala, surrogate ads of liquor brands). And most of our movie and sports stars have no hesitation in endorsing them. There are no values and principles for them. #IPL2O23 #JioCinema
Most often people have a template to judge you and understand you. If you don’t fit the template they get miffed. #lifelessons
While there are hundreds of note taking app but these apps trying to do tons of things do not do the justice to most of the things.
I played at least for a couple of hours with Chat GPT4. I am now a subscriber to its Chat GPT Plus services and committed USD 23 per month for this. While I had used Chat GPT 4–5 months back but this version is something else. Scary and exciting at the same time. We were looking for research assistants for some work but seeing Chat GPT4 capabilities we do not need them.I tested its capabilities with a number of tasks ranging from writing codes to creating characters for stories and the responses were mind-blowing.
Often people ask, what I can do to contribute to climate action. The least that you should do is -“Get Informed”. Understand what it is and how it affects you. It will take some effort. But worth it. One such resource is skepticalscience.com/argument….
climatecrises #climateMyths
You do not want to invest in risky assets hence you keep money in the bank in ‘safer’ less risky instruments. But the bank keeps the money in risky assets because it wants to make more money. So your money goes to risk assets and you are exposed. #BankingCrisis #BankDefaults
Social media is not the barometer of nation's mood.
Social media is increasingly influencing policy makers, politicians and bureaucrats in visualizing and shaping some of the key decisions that have a very comprehensive impact on all citizens. Mass media too these days is factoring social media reactions heavily in their analysis and in building their viewpoint on many issues. If we go by social media indicators, Trump was losing heavily, BJP was going to win a majority in Bihar and Delhi elections, and demonetization was to have some minor inconveniences to most of the people.
Social media has limited capacity to assess the impact or reaction of mass when you consider that it only represents a fraction of overall population. Only 36.5% people in India have access to internet (just to keep in mind that in majority of internet access surveys define internet users as those who have accessed Internet once, the percentage of regular users is very small). And, 71% of the internet users are male, and majority resides in urban and peri-urban areas.
Furthermore, the distinctly urban, male-dominated, educated and privileged profile of social media does not only result in opinions and views that only reflect beliefs and interests of dominant segments but also discourages others who do not have similar opinions from sharing their opinions, a phenomenon known as spiral of silence.
Another very interesting aspect of social media platform is how an idea or opinion is judged. It is all about likes, retweet and shares. And, everyone’s likes, retweets and shares carry the same weight; approval or disapproval is just a mouse click away. This is relevant and logical when we are talking about topics such as who is more popular Shahrukh Khan or Akshay Kumar, or whether you like a Mac or PC.But it takes a very interesting turn when we are assessing evaluating technical topics based on social media reaction.
Some topics, such as whether we should be going for genetically modified crops, we should set up nuclear power-plants, or what should be our approach to managing environment and forest, require far more technical understanding and expertise for discussion and cannot be judged on the basis of likes, dislikes or retweets. But on social media opinion (read approval/disapproval in form of a click) of an environmental expert is same as that of any other person. 1000 retweets and shares of a viewpoint/opinion do not make that valid if the opinion/viewpoint is technically flawed or invalid.
Empathy and Economics
One of the most annoying thing in the pre-cable/satellite television era was Doordarashan mourning demise of political leaders or other eminent personalities. It meant that there is no music, movies or anything related to entertainment on our television. As a kid, we did not like the forced mourning on us. The other thing that we did not like was the news for hearing impaired.
Once the cable TV made its entry in our home, we completely forgot the forced national mourning and the news for hearing impaired. In fact, we forgot Doordarshan.
Sometime back, on Pune airport, waiting for my delayed flight I looked at the television set placed overhead in the waiting area. It was tuned to Doordarshan. And, it was time for the news for hearing impaired. The news, apart from nostalgia, left me thinking that why does only Doordarshan broadcasts this news? Why not any other channel?
The answer was obvious and a bit uncomfortable one. Broadcasting news for hearing impaired is not a profitable business. It is not viable. And in the era of market based solutions, the market for this news is not attractive. Providing solutions for those who do not constitute ‘a viable market’ is not the priority of the market. The economics does not make somebody enter this segment. And, it is 'Economics', not empathy, that drives the market.
Bihar: A Glorious Past and An Uncertain Future
As I walked past a small hut the chorus of ‘ek duni do.. do duni char.. caught my attention. The sound was coming from the hut on my left. I took this route many times, but never stopped to have a second look on the hut. It was so commonplace in a village full of huts. I stopped and so did a couple of people who were with me. One of them was a visitor from Japan.
There were around 20 kids in the hut, swaying back and forth and reciting do ka pahada (table of two). Some of the kids seemed too young to be learning tables. The teacher was nowhere to be seen. Yes, this hut was one of the several centres under Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). The kids spotted us, some kids stopped their recital and took stock of us. Soon, they realized that we are some random visitors making them victim of our stupid curiosity. Soon a young lady, barefoot, hastily covering her head with pallu walked in to the hut. She was the teacher. Suddenly, there was more enthusiasm and participation in the recital.
There was a sudden onrush of mixed emotions. Nostalgia, pride, frustration, helplessness, happiness and hope were all mingled together. The kids were oblivious of the odds against them. Uncertain of what lies ahead of the hut. Many of them may were there because their parents sent them to get free food there. And, many of them will dropout after this school. But some of them will surely defy many odds to achieve what their parents never dreamt of.
It was very ironic. We were in Vaishali: birthplace of Lord Mahavir, workplace of Budhha and the capital of the glorious Licchavi clan. The hut was on our way to Ashokan piller and Abhishek Pushkarni : two reminders of our glorious past. Every person that you will meet from this area will not forget to highlight our past glory. I too, do it without fail when I meet someone who wants to know more about my home state. Often, this helps when I am not keen to discuss the embarrassing present and uncertain future.
A few meters away from that hut, one can find the world peace pagoda and several other palatial Buddhist stupa and temples. These stupas and temples are constructed by several Buddhist countries such as Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan etc. Every year a horde of tourist visit this place to experience and appreciate the work of Budhha and Mahavira.
I look at these temples and stupas which are meant for celebrating the teachings of our enlightened souls and several questions pop up. Would kids there in the hut be able to enjoy and celebrate the teachings of Buddha and Mahavira? What if there were a few schools also built along with the stupas? What if there were enough schools here? What if teachers were inspired by selfless services of Budhha and Mahavira?
The Mind of the Market
For someone who works on ‘understanding markets’ and is familiar with previous works of Michael Shermer, picking “The Mind of the Market” from the bookshelf was an impulsive decision. And, the blurb made it clear that I have an interesting read for my weekend.
Shermer, drawing extensively from behavioral economics, neuroscience, psychology and evolutionary biology, offers his explanation of our seemingly irrational and often unpredictable economic behavior. Shermer, en route to his explanations, builds an excellent repository of cutting edge research in several disciplines and provides his readers a plethora of interesting examples and theories which have been part of great debate among academics; this itself makes his book immensely valuable and enriching. He starts with drawing parallels between Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Adam Smith’s invisible hand makes a cogent argument about interconnectedness of these two seminal works and how they affect behavior. His rebuttal of ‘Homo Economicus’ might not be very convincing to some but it does provide some good insights nonetheless.
“Morality of the market” and “morality and market” are the two themes you will come across in many chapters. While Shermer confesses the limitation of research findings when applied to real life settings, yet he does resort often to the same for his arguments. Shermer cherry-picks cases and examples to establish the creativity and efficacy of markets and its self correcting mechanism; and this has invited a fair amount of criticism to this book. This was almost expected if you consider that Shermer is also known as skeptic and wrote a scathing criticism for Ayn Rand’s philosophy in his essay “The unlikeliest cult in history” , in this book Shermer the skeptics takes the back seat and Shermer the libertarian emerges very strongly.