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Art

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Art. I thought its purpose is beauty, aesthetics. Not always, writes Sam Kahn. Once upon a time, it served another purpose: “The presumption is that art must shock—that the violation of taboo is what gives art its charge; and that, actually, shock and the overturning of societal norms is art’s highest purpose.”   Art-as-subversion later turned into art-as-a-call-to-arms: “Somewhere in the 19 th century the notion develops that a work of art can be most effective when it’s ugly , when it deeply mirrors certain social realities and presents them in such a way that the audience is spurred to immediate action.” This became the norm to such an extent that: “Great art was linked to revolutionary politics, or at least to a certain revolutionary spirit, so that every significant work of art was assessed in large part by its ‘influence,’ which really meant its ability to serve as a wrecking ball to various social norms.” So much so that: “Works of art are always hailed as ‘revolutionary,’...
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Hong Kong #2: Macau

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We went to Macau the next day. Like Hong Kong, Macau is a handover (from Portugal) and thus is treated as an SAR (Special Administrative Region) of China. Like Hong Kong, it has its own currency (Macanese pataca)! The Chinese yuan is accepted, but the Hong Kong dollar is preferred. Like Hong Kong (but unlike China proper), Macau too drives on the left. And you need to clear immigration to pass from Hong Kong to Macau and back. China with SAR’s is complicated.   Macau is famous for its casinos. If you thought Macao is the Las Vegas of Asia… well, actually, Macao is a much larger gambling market than Las Vegas – it crossed Las Vegas’ gaming revenue numbers as long back as 2010. That said, a lot of things are indeed copied from Las Vegas, including the name (Cotai Strip where the luxury themed casino resorts are located). The Cotai Strip has Londoner, Parisian and Venetian themed resorts – the collated pics from the Net will help get an idea of what that means: We walked around...
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Hong Kong #1: Victoria Peak and Trivia

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For this vacation, we went to Hong Kong with a day at Macau. But before I go into the details of that, some assorted titbits on the Hong Kong.   Hong Kong is an SAR (Special Administrative Region) of China ever since it was handed back from the UK in 1997. It is governed under the “one country, two systems” principle, in line with the 1984 agreement with the British which was made prior to the handover (China guarantees Hong Kong's economic and political systems for 50 years after the handover).   As a result, you have this weird situation where Hong Kong has its own currency (Hong Kong dollar). While the Chinese yuan is accepted, it is not the preferred currency. Lastly, Hong Kong drives on the left unlike China (proper) which drives on the right!   Hong Kong is the world’s 3 rd largest financial hub (after New York and London). The biggest Chinese tech companies, from Alibaba to Baidu to TenCent (WeChat) are all listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. ~~ ...
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Continual Improvement

In the West, we see periodic clamouring that Google or Facebook or Amazon has too much data, and that they be split up e.g. Google into search, YouTube, Gmail and Android each as a separate company. Or Facebook into, er, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp as separate companies.   While India sees the problem, the DEPA framework acknowledges some of the benefits of one company having a lot of data. A massive Amazon or Flipkart that delivers all over the country can bring down costs for consumers, something not possible if every company in that sector was small.   What then would be a good balance? Rahul Matthan asks us to consider a bank in in The Third Way . As the entity with all the personal financial data, it has an outsized advantage. No new entity with a new idea in the lending space can ever hope to compete against a bank with so much information. DEPA’s architecture has a way, at least in theory. The data the banks holds is actually the account owner’s data. There...
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Theory of Mind

Most animals spend all their time “eating, resting and mating”. They have very little free time. Until primates broke that trend. Since they lived on trees and plucked fruits from the tree (high calories), they got a luxury few species have – free time! Combine that with the fact that primates lived in groups, says Max Bennett half tongue-in-cheek in A Brief History of Intelligence : “Primates seemed to have filled their open calendars with politicking.”   Scientists believe that politicking that led to the Theory of Mind , the ability to model the mind of another individual. What is the other individual trying to do? Why? In politicking, being able to understand the mind of other players is an obvious advantage.   There are a class of neurons called mirror neurons . They get activated when a primate watched others perform certain actions. See the other one peel a banana, and the observer would salivate! What evolutionary use could these mirror neurons have served?...
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Preamble #8: Nation Building

During the discussions and debates on the key directions of the Constitution, the leftists wanted the words “socialist” and “secular” in the Preamble. Others bemoaned the absence of Gandhian principles. And another set asked why a reference to a godhead was absent. Ambedkar opposed all of these. (“Socialist” and “secular” would be inserted decades later in 1976 via an amendment).   Part of the reason for opposing the above was that Ambedkar was sceptical on the idea of India even being a nation! Here is his statement on the matter: “In believing we are a nation, we are cherishing great delusion. How can people divided into thousands of castes be a nation?” It was a worry shared by many others, though they would replace “castes” with “languages” and other regional differences. Therefore, believed Ambedkar, we needed a Constitution for a state, the groundwork to establish a nation. Only then could we hope that we would evolve into a nation someday. “The sooner we realize t...
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Traffic Jams, the Shadow Fleet Connection

While caught in Bangalore’s infamous traffic jams, Pranay Kotasthane stumbled upon yet another example of the unintended consequence of policy actions. Once upon a time, it was common for large trucks to be lumbering through city roads at all hours, including inevitably peak hours. So those heavy goods vehicles (HGV) were banned inside the city during busy hours. “The goal is simple and well-intentioned: reduce congestion, cut down on pollution, and make streets safer.”   Sadly, even such a well-intentioned policy has side-effects. “While the big, regulated trucks are kept at the outskirts, the demand for goods doesn't just disappear. Instead, it’s displaced onto a shadow fleet of smaller, faster, and unsafe vehicles.”   One half of that shadow fleet consists of “repurposed” agricultural vehicles. “Designed for low-speed farm work, they are dangerously unstable on paved roads.” But the bigger threat comes from the other half – the illegally modified mini-truck...
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