Viswanathan K's Thoughts

A lot of people who condemn the harm that we humans do to each other, on other species and on the planet often also state (in the same breath) that we should be like Nature. Which would imply that nature is compassionate, tolerant, forgiving and loving. But just look at the data to the contrary. In most species, the runt of the litter is left to die or (in some extreme cases) even given as food to its fitter siblings. The overwhelming majority of species on this planet have died out already (more than 99%). And before you blame us humans for that, note that most of those extinctions happened before man appeared on the planet. By all means, let’s be more compassionate and caring. All I am saying let’s stop pretending nature is any of those things. Nature is “red in tooth and claw”: nature’s all about the survival of the fittest, not some socialistic utopia.

The first time most of us realize that there is difference among EU nations is when one comes to learn that the Schengen Visa isn’t valid across all those nations. Until I saw the pic below, I didn’t realize that the continent which claims European integration is its ultimate aim had so many different institutions related to that goal! Notice how many of them there are. And worse, how they overlap. Must be a bureaucrat’s dream come true! (On the bright side, here’s a very nice application of Venn diagrams). So what are all these groups? Eurozone : 17 countries that use the Euro as their currency. EU-but-not-Eurozone : Members of EU but don’t use Euro as the currency. Among these, only UK, Denmark and Sweden opted out of the Euro. The rest in that group (later day Eastern European additions) are obligated to eventually transition to the Euro currency. European Union Customs Union (EUCU) : No customs levied on goods moving within this group. Customs are only levied on goods entering the

In my company, they give gift vouchers as rewards. Sure, you get to pick the mall or store from which the voucher is issued, but it’s not the same as cash. When I asked why they don’t give cash, I was told that when the reward comes as cash (and hence as part of the salary), people don’t even realize they got an award! But with a voucher (or so they told me), you know exactly what you got as a reward. The association to the reward is clear, but not so with cash. With that reasoning in the background, it was interesting to read about this reform discussion in the budget as to whether it was better to give cash (instead of subsidies) to the poor. Those in favour feel that cash can be targeted at the people who are poor, whereas subsidies end up getting doled out to even those who don’t need them. (Think of the amount you pay for that gas cylinder to see the point). Plus, the cash option gives the poor to use the money the way they want rather than having the government decide the items

Pretty much all companies talk about the importance of innovation, to be creative, to come up with new ideas. Google has its famous 20% Rule: employees can spend 20% of their time on activities/projects that interest them without considering whether/how what they do could benefit the company. The idea is that if people do what they like, then some of those ideas may hit gold. Possibly. Some times. I heard that Facebook takes it even further and allows pretty much everyone to do whatever they like all the time ! That seems outrageous at first. But if you stop and think, what exactly do companies like Google and Facebook really need their employees for? I mean, their algorithms are already written, servers deployed with redundancies and backups built in already. They are not manufacturing companies; so they don’t that need to build one more fridge or car (or anything else) to sell more. Since they provide everything for free, they don’t have service contracts to provide free upgrades or

I read this response by an English college professor to a question on which books he considered as essential reading for a young person: "For what it's worth, I don't think what a young person reads is nearly as important as how he or she reads. Young people who learn to read with patience and care and long-term concentration, with pencil in hand to make notes (including questions and disagreements), will be better prepared for college than students who read all the "right" books but read them carelessly or passively." This quote is an instance of the point I made in my previous blog about the education system’s emphasis on the “how”, not the “what”. But in this instance, focusing on the “how” is a good thing! The unfortunate thing, though, is that that following this professor’s advice would only put you on the fast track to nowhere. How many institutes that you know of actually practice his philosophy? Are they not more likely to reject the kid who say

Means v/s Ends. When people say the means are more important than the ends, they are (usually) talking about ethics and morality. But when it comes to problem solving in the real world, shouldn’t the emphasis be on finding a solution? On finding ‘x’? Shouldn’t how one figures out the solution be irrelevant? Taken to an extreme, rules and processes often blind us to what is the intended purpose of the whole exercise. Just look at a bureaucracy to see what I mean. Unfortunately, our education system focuses on the “how”, not the “what”. That is almost always a bad thing, except maybe in one case. Computers blindly execute instructions without having a clue as to what was intended. Maybe our wavelengths match with computers when it comes to following instructions without a care about the ultimate intention, and perhaps that’s why we Indians are so good at IT?!