Viswanathan K's Thoughts

For what purpose has the brain evolved? As humans, we are biased when we encounter that question, writes Lisa Barrett in Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain . We wrongly assume that the purpose of the brain is to think: “After all, thinking is the human superpower, right?”   Wrong, says Barrett. Long, long ago, unicellular life found itself in competition with others over limited resources, the importance of any capability to sense what lay where was an evolutionary advantage – Did XYZ lie to the left or right? Gradually though, raw sense organ signals weren’t enough. Choices had to be made – was it likely one could catch the prey? Make a wrong choice repeatedly and one would die of starvation. Thus: “Energy efficiency was a key to survival.”   So Barrett concludes: “Your brain’s most important job is to control your body… by predicting energy needs before they arise so you can efficiently make worthwhile movements and survive.”   But this created...

During Trump’s last term, he declared war on Huawei, the Chinese telecom equipment (and phone) manufacturer saying they were installing backdoors and spying. So how secure are telecom networks? That is the topic Jordan Schneider discussed with his panellists and it is very interesting.   Since Huawei got banned in the West, China instead went after Western telecom providers and hacked them to get access to all kinds of data! No, they can’t hear what you say. No, they can’t read what you type on encrypted chat apps like WhatsApp. But: “The telcos have the location data, call records, voicemails, and they can do many things without our knowledge or control.”   Everyone carries and uses their smartphone everywhere. Even soldiers (except in specific areas or operations where they are forbidden). Why? Well, to stay in touch with family and friends. Plus, telecom networks are far better than military telecom infra anyway in terms of coverage! This creates new scenarios, not just wr...

In the recent budget, there was a reference to “multidimensional poverty”. What exactly does that mean? Nithin Sasikumar explains it well. Note : As is his style, he is explaining what the concept is; not assessing the data used to come to any conclusion on poverty levels in the country.   When we think of poverty, we think of income, whether it is enough to cover basic expenses ( roti, kapada, makaan ). This is the classical definition of absolute poverty – below a certain income, one is considered BPL (Below the Poverty Line). The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t look at other aspects: “ But, say you live in a house with a leaking roof, you don’t have access to clean water, there’s no electricity, and you have a child who hasn’t seen a classroom in months because the nearest school is too far off. Are you not poor?”   It is to include these other aspects (besides income) that the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was created. So what is it exactly? “India’s...

Since I work on anesthesia machines, I loved this fascinating piece by Devansh Malik on anesthestic agents and what exactly happens when anesthetized.   The story starts in the 1840’s, when a popular pastime (in the West) was to inhale ether or nitrous oxide at what was called the “laughing gas parties”: “You’d inhale a bit, feel euphoric, do something embarrassing and everyone would laugh. Simple pleasures of life.”   Then people noticed something weird – people inhaling these gases didn’t experience pain (even when they hurt themselves badly). This led a dentist named Horace Wells to wonder if it might have the same effect on the tooth. He had a colleague extract his tooth under nitrous oxide and was happy he didn’t feel any pain. A public demonstration unfortunately didn’t work and the patient did experience pain. Another dentist named William Morton tried it again, with ether during a tooth extraction. It worked. “ Shortly after, a surgeon there removed a tumo...

In his book, Corruptible , Brian Klass interviews former Thailand PM, Abhisit Vejjajiva. In early 2010, protestors numbering 1,20,000 gathered in the streets of Bangkok demanding his resignation. When the government sent in soldiers to clear the area, they (the soldiers, not the protestors) were met with bullets and grenades. The soldiers fired back, and 26 were killed, a thousand injured.   The heavily armed protestors started speaking of civil war. Sporadic gunfire in the streets started to become commonplace. Vejjajiva had helicopters drop pamphlets declaring some areas of the city as buffer zones between protestors and government troops. Anyone entering the buffer zone risked getting shot, said the leaflets. Eventually, troops were told to break through the barricades and go after the protestors. The protest was finally put down, at a cost of 87 killed.   Was Vejjajiva the stereotype ruler who tried to hold onto power at all costs? Maybe. But also listen to Vejjaji...

When a civilization is at its high, it can dominate the neighbourhood literally and figuratively. Often via force (or threat of force). But also by influence and admiration. What we call hard power and soft power .   While the causes for the eventual decline of hard power are talked about, what about the decline of soft power? Arnold Toynbee believed the cause for that was entirely social . Which makes sense, since soft power is social after all. So what was Toynbee’s theory?   Initially and for a long time, the “creative minority” within that civilization is the driver of new ideas, new technologies, new achievements. But at some point, they “lose their creative power, turn self-obsessed and focus all their energies on self-preservation”. The word used in modern lingo to describe this group is “elites” . The majority begins to lose faith in the creative minority and with that, the splintering of the civilization begins.   Toynbee goes into the details of the...

The price of medicines are controlled to varying degrees by the Indian government. We aren’t the only country that regulates the prices of various medicines. I had assumed this is a practice of poorer countries only .   Not true, I learnt as I read Alex Tabarrok’s post . But first, why do pharma companies (including Western giants with political clout) agree to such reduced pricing? Because of the nature of their product – coming up with a new medicine is very, very costly (research, clinical trials, regulatory clearances, making doctors aware). But the manufacturing cost of each pill in and of itself is very tiny (in most cases). Therein lies the answer to our question. “Not because firms are charitable, but because a high price means poorer countries buy nothing, while any price above marginal cost is still profit.” Thus: “This type of price discrimination is good for poorer countries, good for pharma, and (indirectly) good for the United States: more profits mean more ...

The Partition was supposed to have been a solution for the Hindu-Muslim animosity, writes Sam Dalrymple in Shattered Lands . Splitting into separate countries for each was supposed to avoid bloodshed.   But it didn’t help that the line was drawn by Radcliffe, a man who had never even been to India. Plus, Mountbatten insisted the boundary be made public a few days after the British left “in order to divert odium from the British”.   In Punjab, it led to widespread mutual killings (Gandhi’s presence and threats to commit suicide kept Bengal at relative peace), the very thing Partition was intended to avoid… ~~   Then Pakistan, now formed, declared that Muslims deep inside India, well, they were not Pakistan’s concern! So much for the nation for Muslims idea. Conversely, Muslims who moved to Pakistan found themselves not accepted, treated as outsiders, a problem that continues even today. ~~   The savage blood-letting of Partition would harden Pate...

Is AI over-hyped? Or is it going to transform the landscape so drastically that it would be unrecognizable? Like how electricity did a century back?   If it will/does shake up the job market drastically, how quickly/slowly would that happen? At the pace of electricity (quite fast, but nowhere close to overnight)? Or much slower? Or way, way faster?   It was in the context of these questions that (right or wrong) China’s approach being so different from the US is worth checking out.   AI, if it were to be as transformative as some say (fear?), would cause massive job losses and social upheaval, the backdrop to every revolution. Which is why the Chinese government (single-party rule system) is wary. On the other hand, China can’t ignore AI, given how much potential it has, plus the risk of its arch-rival running too far ahead. Therein lies China’s AI dilemma. What then is China’s AI approach?   Since 2023, all public facing AI models must be filed with...

I have great sympathy for the teachers of kids my daughter’s generation. After all, these Gen Z kids (born between 1997 and 2012) consider themselves to be peers of everyone – their parents, their teachers – and treat all those folks with the same derisiveness. This drives parents up a wall (and worse), but those teachers have to suffer this fate at the hands of so many kids. Plus, while parental love can help tide over such treatment, what about the poor teacher? It turns out the teachers have found ways to cope with such, er, abuse. ~~   Now that my daughter has entered the feared board exam year (10 th ), the teachers try to, er, motivate the kids by telling them that they are going to end up on the streets, so it is time to shape up.   One kid responded to this (separately, out of class) pointing out that she lived in a 4 BHK, had a Mercedes, so she was definitely not homeless. Upon which a classmate cheerfully corrected her saying that the teacher’s comment wasn’t about h...

Last up Hyderabad. In March, 1948, it was the only princely state that hadn’t gone to India or Pakistan. Surrounded by India, in the backdrop of Partition, its attempt to stay independent was viewed through a religious lens by India, explains Sam Dalrymple in Shattered Lands .   The Indian Army, which had commandeered Hyderabad’s military equipment for World War II, now refused to return those arms – why arm a secessionist state? The Nizam tried hard to get weapons smuggled in, but there was no easy way to do that in enough bulk.   By this time, more and more groups were entering Hyderabad, some pro-Hindi, others pro-Muslim. Law and order fell apart with the presence of these armed groups, who also went about slaughtering people of the other religion. In response, the Nizam fell upon on a local militant group called the Razakars. Their anti-Hindu rhetoric evoked fear in the Hindus in Hyderabad and 4 lakh would leave the state. At the same time, 7.5 lakh people would en...

The alignment problem. A phrase Yuval Noah Harari uses in Nexus to describe the mismatch and thus the problems created by today’s information systems. The Internet started off by being free (content), but companies had to find a way to make money. They found ads. But that created a second-order consequence – it became necessary to show more ads, which meant it became key that users spent the maximum possible time online. User “engagement” has thus become the mantra of the Internet, quality (let alone truth) of content be damned. And outrage outsells tranquillity by a mile.   Clausewitz, a Prussian general, wrote a book called On War , in which he famously said that: “War is the continuation of policy by other means.” In his view, wars should not be based on emotions or egos or even righteousness. Rather, war should be used as a political tool and even then, only if it aligns with some overarching political goal. (Indira Gandhi in Bangladesh is pure Clausewitz; George W B...