Cause and Effect

"See, all our people are businessmen. Their loyalty's based on that. One thing I learned from Pop was to try to think as people around you think. And on that basis, anything's possible." Micheal Corleone explains to Tom Hagen in Godfather 2. Expect the worst in people and anything they do better than that is only going to be good. :)

My cousin's post on religion says this:

"Man from his selfish and basic needs graduated to sharing and helping his fellow beings. He became tolerant, respected and wise."

My take is that Man became helpful and engaged in resource sharing because it was a necessity for survival. And this behaviour is not unique to humans alone. 

Predators engage in pack hunting because they know they can eat only if they do so. Bees are one of the most organized species. Ant behaviour is highly coordinated. They all do that because thats the only way they can survive.

But humans have one extra thing. They have something called self respect. It is an internal reward system which incents them to accomplish things even if they dont need to.

It is what makes my colleague, heir to a large estate, slog at nights. "Sense of accomplishment", he says.

Labels

Ever got caught up in a discussion about god or religion or politics that never went anywhere? 

"My god/country/culture is better than yours" -- All because they happen to be born into that religion/country/culture.

Paul Graham's excellent essay advices people to keep their identity small.

What's different about religion is that people don't feel they need to have any particular expertise to have opinions about it. All they need is strongly held beliefs, and anyone can have those. 

Then it struck me: this is the problem with politics too. Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion. All you need is strong convictions.

I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people's identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity. By definition they're partisan.

More generally, you can have a fruitful discussion about a topic only if it doesn't engage the identities of any of the participants.

The most intriguing thing about this theory, if it's right, is that it explains not merely which kinds of discussions to avoid, but how to have better ideas. If people can't think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible.

Labels like Hindu, Brahman, Indian, Asian, Konkani, Mallu, Liberal might give you an identity but they only make you smaller.

New Generation. New Rules.

A culture is always a product of its circumstance. Culture itself means 'a particular society at a particular time and place'. It is designed to meet the requirements of that place and time. 

Why should anyone be proud of culture then? Especially if the culture is no longer relevant to the current times.

If you keep clinging to your culture, you are blocking its evolution. 

The Great Indian Tamasha

One of the best things about living in India is the perpetual theater of comedy presented by the politicians.

Recent case is the 'Moral Policing' initiated by Karnataka's Hindu extremists who are now over-confident with the BJP Govt in the state.



Equally humorous is the over-enthusiastic verbal diarrhea from India's self appointed Women conservator, Renuku Choudhary.
'Pub Bharo', is her advice. Stretching Gandhi's Civil Disobedience mantra a bit too much I guess.

One wonders, if she will take the same stance if Sri Ram Sena takes a stand against prostitution and other 'social ills'.

A simple twist of fate

The project had a rocky start. New technologies. New frameworks. New methodologies. People with 2 years of experience in India were reporting to firangs with 10+ years. To people who had started their own companies before, who have been CTOs and Software Architects. To add to that, the project was grossly underestimated, off by 1 year. Everyone was very skeptical about the whole arrangement.

Daily status calls were a nightmare. "Why did this take so much time?" "You guys are idiots!" 

We all developed thick skins. But we are very resilient. We knew this was an excellent project. We could learn a lot from these guys. And now, we had a cause. To prove them wrong. So, everyone slogged. The official work hours were 12:30 PM to 12:30 AM. But we often ended up working till 2 AM everyday.

We loved it. Those were the most productive days. Even though we were working very long hours, they felt very short. The cooperation in the team was excellent. Everyone did what they had to do. There was no hierarchy. No manager wanted to touch this project. 

In the darkest days, the senior management initiated a Case Study. What went wrong in this project? 

But a few months later, the story changed. All the hard work had paid off. We now had complete knowledge of things. And our productivity was 3 times higher than them. 3x productivity for a 1/10th of the cost. The client poured out their appreciation for the work. They loved our solutions. More work came in. The team size grew 5x. New work meant new revenue which got the management's attention. 

What went right with this project? Now, they want a new case study.

In praise of laziness

All tools have the same purpose behind them. To make us more efficient in the task at hand. So that we spend lesser time and energy to accomplish things.

From the wheel to the iPhone, every invention is basically aimed to make things easier to do.

People say, "Necessity is the mother of invention". But what is the motivation for necessity? Laziness.

Laziness is the real mother of invention!

Speed thrills but...

"When you ride at such speeds, you attain a transcendental state where ironically things slow down." says a colleague who is into bike racing. Some years back, this person had an accident because of an air bubble in oil and was in a coma for a few days before recovering. He still races inspite of passionate pleas from relatives.

At high speeds, small mistakes have high costs.

"Crouching Tiger, Lumbering Elephant" is a phrase aptly used to compare China and India.  

Someone compared it to riding a car on a fast track where you don't know where the road ends versus riding on a road full of potholes.

Which is better? I don't know.