Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Data is the new oil, they say. That seems obvious when you think of Google, Facebook, Baidu and Tencent, writes Yuval Noah Harari in 21 Lessons for the 21 st Century . And yet, we give our data away so easily: “People are happy to give away their most valuable asset – their personal data – in exchange for free email services and funny cat videos. It is a bit like African and Native Americans tribes who unwittingly sold entire countries to European colonialists in exchange for colorful beads and cheap trinkets.” We are heading for a future described below: “What will happen when we can ask Google, “Hi Google, based on everything you know about cars, and based on everything you know about me (including my needs, my habits, my views on global warming, and even my opinions about Middle Eastern politics) – what is the best car for me?” Or maybe we’ll be asking Facebook or Alexa/Amazon that question, but the point is the same. If we, as individuals and as a society, don’t f...

The common man today thinks that the democratic form of government he has comes from the Greeks. Wrong! Sure, the Greeks, as usual, were good with ideas in philosophy and yes, about democracy. But, as with all matters practical, the Greeks never solved the messiness of democracy problem. The ones who did solve that problem best were the Romans. I’ll just repeat the description of Rome’s solution from an earlier blog : “Their solution? To form a republic. It was a trial and error system of government that evolved with time and events: -          They create a body of aristocrats called the Senate. The Senate, however, could not pass laws and had no legal powers. Instead, all adult male citizens voted in the assemblies for the passing of bills. But, of course, the money of the aristocrats still wielded influence. -          From amongst the senators, two were elected as “consuls”, not by the ...

Some time back, Google asked the US government to follow India’s UPI scheme, a part of the India Stack , to enable digital financial innovation. Ernst and Young reports indicate that India and China lead the rate of fintech adoption (87%) while the highest ranked developed country was Holland (73%). So why is the rate of fintech adoption lower in the West? A big part of the answer is that India has the UPI system that is part of the India Stack. Whereas the US (and the West) don’t have any equivalent system. Let me explain the difference that makes. In India, when you install, say Google Pay , your phone number is already seeded with your Aadhar number. So too are your bank accounts. Ergo, the app can query for all banks seeded with the same Aadhar number as the phone on which the app is installed. Without the app ever knowing your Aadhar number: the stack is designed that way! You select the bank account from the list the query threw up, and bingo! The app can now access a...

I saw this news about the Karnataka act against inhuman practices and black magic finally becoming law: “The act bans performing any black magic, inhumane act and evil practices in search of treasure or bounty, tantric acts which include physical and sexual assault, practices such as parading people naked, ostracising a person in the name of a ritual and encouraging inhumane acts during said rituals, exorcism, assaulting people under the pretext of exorcism, misinformation and creating a panic-like situation under the pretext of ghosts and black magic and others.” It brought back memories of this podcast on the strange impact of that famous horror movie, The Exorcist . In case you don’t know, that’s a movie from the 1970’s about a girl who got possessed, on whom a priest performed exorcism to finally rid her of the demon. As a consultant priest for the movie, Tom Bermingham said: “Making the movie was strange enough. But the aftermath was completely bizarre.” Bizarre how...

Paul Graham writes of a common lament among adults long after they graduate: “In theory, tests are merely what their name implies: tests of what you've learned in the class. In theory you shouldn't have to prepare for a test in a class any more than you have to prepare for a blood test.” And: “In practice… things are so different that hearing this explanation of how classes and tests are meant to work is like hearing the etymology of a word whose meaning has changed completely.” No surprise then that this is how we go through school and college: “For me, as for most students, the measurement of what I was learning completely dominated actual learning in college.” But isn’t this just a cost of doing business, a way to get a job? No, says Graham: “The most damaging thing you learned in school wasn't something you learned in any specific class. It was learning to get good grades.” Huh? How can learning to get good grades be a damaging thing?! Lamentable a...

Machiavelli (“M”) wrote another book, The Discourses . In it, he describes three forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy (as in “meritocracy”) and democracy. He wrote all three can degenerate into bad forms of governance. Monarchy can easily become a tyranny. Aristocracies turn into cliquish oligarchies. And democracies can descend into chaotic mob rule. So M’s preferred solution? A Republic. Not the way we see it now. Rather, he wanted it in the way ancient Rome was : a mix of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. M was asking for a system with checks and balances in place! Wait, it gets better: M felt the job of a government is to provide stability, security and provide a setup where people can just get on with their lives. See how close this sounds to many modern governments? See how contradictory this book is to the more (in)famous The Prince ? Sebastian Major’s second podcast explores The Prince again with all of the above in mind. And then you see The Prince is ab...

Niccolo Machiavelli. (I’ll call him “M” in the rest of the blogs). A man synonymous with ruthlessness and power hungriness. Unethical, unscrupulous, cut-throat. The book behind that reputation, The Prince , was called “a handbook for gangsters” by Bertrand Russell. At the peak of the war between Catholics and Protestants, the two sides could agree on one thing: M was a bad guy. Of course, the Catholics thought M was a heretic, like the Protestants. While the Protestants thought that M’s advice was exactly how the Catholics behaved. The museum in Florence has statues of Galileo, Leonardo, Michelangelo... and M! To many (not just in Florence), M was an intellectual hero. He was a great philosophical and political thinker. So which view is right? In the first part of his podcast on the man, Sebastian Major contends that you can’t decouple M from the environment he lived in. Ergo, he takes us back to Florence in the 1400’s, one of the great city-state powers of the age along w...