Viswanathan K's Thoughts

When it comes to feats in space, India is among the best. Mangalyaan got into Mars’ orbit on the first attempt, something nobody else managed on their first try. Not the Americans, not the Russians, not the Chinese. More recently, we put the maximum number of satellites in orbit with one launch: over a hundred, almost 3 times the previous record! And, as it turns out, our guy didn’t goof up his memorable line from space. When Rakesh Sharma, India’s first astronaut in space, was asked how India looked from space, he replied: “Saare jahan se achcha.” Sure, you say, that was a rehearsed answer. Of course, it was. But do you think Neil Armstrong didn’t have his first line from the moon rehearsed as well? Remember that line? “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The first time they hear it, almost everyone asks what’s the difference between the first part and the second part of that line. Yes, there is none! There would have been a difference had Armstr...

“It is one thing to accept something in practice, another to justify it rationally.” -          Isaiah Berlin It’s no secret that rationality can’t always give you reasons for deciding what’s right and what’s wrong (Though rationality can help you decide whether or not to follow what is termed by the majority as right or wrong). In most cases, that doesn’t matter. Is stealing ok? You don’t need rationality to provide an answer to accept that it’s not ok. Morality, social norms, jail time are acceptable reasons (well ok, jail time would be a rational cost-benefit analysis based reason, but even the others are acceptable reasons to not steal). But what about something like athletes taking steroids to win? Lance Armstrong is the poster boy for drugs in sports these days. He is getting stripped of his many wins and the runner up declared the new winner (As an aside, that “solution” made me wonder: in sports like cycling or shot-put, ever...