The Moral Instinct

Bertrand Russell wrote, “The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists — that is why they invented hell.”

This is an excellent essay by Steven Pinker on the Moral Instinct.

Get High, way up in the Sky

Imagine coasting over the clouds in a transparent tube enjoying dinner while you are chasing the setting sun. Imagine partying all night literally on the stratosphere right under the shining stars. Imagine moon-roof on your flight that opens to give you a breathtaking view of the night sky. I’m not scripting a cheesy science fiction here; I’m talking about the next generation star-lit cruises!

In my opinion, there is a vast and potentially profitable market of aerial cruises that is currently untapped. We would need to build air-crafts with these capabilities. I’m not an expert in aerodynamics or materials, but it is difficult for me to believe that there are technological limitations to aerial luxury liners. If there is a market for space tourism – something that companies like Virgin galactic is trying to build – it is hard to imagine why aerial tourism would not flourish. Of course, a detailed economic analysis will help answer the profitability and sustainability of this air tourism industry, but I suspect that there’s enough novelty and panache in the idea that the first movers will make a killing.

Now if you want to get on the Sunset Express, I suggest you follow the news for you may soon be able to make an early bird reservation! For the others who wanna talk about the details, buzz me and I’m all ears!

Oh God, Where Art Thou?

This morning, I decided to move on from latest escapades of Paris and her poodle and rashly chose to take the Lord’s name in vain. Blasphemy, you may exclaim, but I promise not to be any more ludicrous than things that you already might have read, heard or even said. After all who ever said that pointless publishing was an exclusive club.

But, of course, any good argument stems from strong research. So after perusing through links stemming from a google search for about 1.5 seconds, I choose to theorize. The general idea of religion seems to be that it is a tool that was created and that was propagated over time so that it can be used to hedge against several forms of uncertainties that afflicts an individual over his/her lifetime. I like to think of religion as the oldest form of insurance. Prayers and offerings are the currency through with people pay the premium. Religious institutions are the banks where you deposit your currency. In the face of sorrow and uncertainty, people evoke their insurance card and seek returns in form of mental strength to quell the tides of darkness. Greater the diligence in making the religious deposits, larger is the reservoir and more forceful is the belief of reprieve from evil times.

The beauty of religious insurance is that its promoters seem to have successfully convinced the practioners that even if sometimes relief is not provided, it is not the fault of the insurance provider but it is because of insufficient deposits. This leads to a greater transaction of the intangible religious currency, thus giving birth to a continuous positive feedback loop for the development of this institution. Over time, this barter system was ossified and religious institutions were immortalized.

But, as in most cases, the problem of high principles and low practice plagues most people. There are those kinds who don’t pay their premium regularly. Not all of them can be called atheists though for takes a lot of strength and courage to practice atheism. These religious free-loaders can be classified into the following forms. There are your regular agnostics, convenient theists (theists who pay the heavy premiums only in times of crisis), opportunistic atheists (atheists who choose to seek divine help in bad times), social atheists (they believe in God but don’t profess it openly for fear of being socially ostracized) and lazy theists (these are the ones who believe in God but find little time from their hedonistic lifestyles to practice it). Most people, including myself, fall in one or in some combination of the above.

True believers of atheism are those who at no point seek the powers of the holy insurance provider during times of adversity. Instead true atheists dig deep unto themselves to battle their troubles. In fact, I contend that the greatest atheists of the modern world were the messiahs – Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha – themselves. They were strong willed individuals who did not subscribe to the religious structures that existed during their times. The strength of their personality created a strong stream of admirers who slowly turned into powerful propaganda machines giving birth to modern forms of religion. This might be an over-simplification but can very well be true. In fact, it is likely that there were several such strong personalities at different points in history but they weren’t atoned to holy status as, perhaps thankfully, they lacked the much needed marketing muscle.

Another interesting aspect about religion that I notice is that people tend to being more and more ritualistic theists as they grow older. I think that this is because they not only have to manage personal uncertainties but now need manage uncertainties arising out of conjugal, filial and parental responsibilities. In many cases as they cannot influence the actions of those that they want to influence, they call upon divinity more frequently than before to help them.

Often this call is carried out by a means of a pre-ordained process that requires an ample transaction of both real and religious currency. Despite this being a common practice that has continued for ages, I wonder why religonomics is not a field of study. While it may be sacrilegious to offer such courses, but it’ll indeed be interesting to see the “balance-sheets” of religious institutions!

At this point, it appears as if the philosopher in me decided to step out on yet another long vacation. I, therefore, am going stop this Morpheus-que babble. In the meantime, I am definitely open to all forms of discussions – serious or otherwise. And, of course, I apologize if I have ruffled any of your feathers (or beliefs as the case may be). But despite this if you choose to issue some form of a fatwa, I suggest that you hold off as it is not a particularly polite thing to do!

An ode to the spirit of the Supers

In the past few months I’ve seen quite a few superhero movies. I was profoundly moved by the lives our supers lead and decided to dedicate a few lines to the poor fellows.

All superdudes seem to have a poignant story that drives them to a point where they are socially un-presentable. All that the poor guy wants is a place in this complicated and judgmental world. So what if they were stupid enough to be bit by a spider or dumb enough to be dressed like a bat. Why wouldn’t people not understand a simple fact that krypton is a real planet and not a figment of imagination of a disturbed cerebra. All these and more insinuations scar their already distressed soul. It ultimately transpires into rather unconventional sartorial practices –relegating them deeper into the realms of anonymity.

And, it is not as if their job is easy. Almost always they battle an evil mad-scientist. All these mad geeks seem to have invented some form of plutonium enriched cosmos-vaporizing machine and are usually bent on blowing their brains out, along with the rest of the complicated, judgemental and pedantic world. The worst part is that these mad geeks never ever create any user manual to defuse the damned device. And it is not as if these nutjobs can be talked out of it. They are usually dogmatic, argumentative and are fuelled by coffee. Also, they emit unpleasant odor.

The only option that our superbuddy has is to put on his costume, cross the seven seas, wade thro’ the thick forests, fight the dangerous minions and ultimately put out the plutonium enriched cosmos-vaporizing machine just in time to save himself, the nosy but a hot reporter who is curiously tied to the plutonium enriched cosmos-vaporizing machine and also the rest of the complicated, judgmental, pedantic and conniving world – exactly in that order of priority.

Sometimes when the supster is clearing out the place, it hits our fella that he meets only two kinds people in his line of work – smelly mad geeks or nosy reporters. While both are suicidal and can potentially eat his brain out in one form or other, he decides test waters with the nosy reporter. Smelly mad geeks seem to have a lower social acceptance than the superhero himself.

So in a perfectly romantic place, surrounded by bombs, tanks, broken metals parts and all other forms of ill-conceived weaponry, our hero expresses his interest in spending much of his non-crime chasing life with this precariously perched heroine. As the girl, who is literally heels over head, elaborately explains the terms of endearment, our friend begins to understand the exact reasons why the mad geek had tied this specific to the plutonium enriched cosmos-vaporizing machine.

At that instant, our man profusely thanks the cover of anonymity that his super costume provides and saves himself, yet again, from the smelly mad geek and nosy reporter. He heads back to his cave with no recognition of his work, no gratitude for his efforts - only to be confronted by increased insurance premiums and more laundry to do.

As you will now agree, the supers indeed lead a miserable, lonely and an unrewarding life. All I can say is please join me in creating awareness about the wretched dwelling conditions and the sub-human work environments that our super-humans endure. May their scarred souls rest in one piece for now and may all the mad geeks start using Listerine.

The blog with no real title and no real content

That’s right, people; I have decided to waste a few precious moments of your time. Read on and do let me know if you don’t disagree.

Once you have got yourselves out of the slightly confusing double negative, you can now see that it has been a while since I refreshed this page. I have no clue why I’m doing it now. I think it is partly because I finally managed to break the very well conspired and very well executed routine of doing absolutely nothing. In case you are interested, it has worked well so far. I have made several gains in areas that I shall neither discuss nor disclose, for I fear that my plans may be aped by all those poor souls who are still seeking out for some inspiration.

But to be a wee bit more serious, I decided to blog because a friend of mine gently reminded me that it has been a year since I rambled in this forum (Oh don’t panic. My rambling skills are almost intact, if not better). Frankly I was surprised, a little bit shocked even at his reminder. I was definitely caught at a back foot at the fact that more than half of 2005 has slipped away even before I realized it, the fact that I have managed to fit life only across weekends for nearly a year now, the fact that the dreaded cross-roads are approaching fast and also still the fact that the idiot Bush was re-elected!!

The question now becomes what I am going to do now that I have made these important realizations. One option I did consider was to reject them as a capitalist conspiracy till I get the machine to freeze time. But since I am currently facing some logistical issues in acquiring the machine, I am now slightly determined to give those painful questions a fleeting thought before I get back on my arduous routine of doing nothing. That’s right, only a fleeting thought for now – ‘cos I’m afraid anything more than that will destroy my well set apple-cart and I may end up in coming out with some solutions that’ll cause a rebellion amongst the squrriels in South-West Malibu.

But I do admit that, as intiguing as that thought sounds, I'm too lazy to execute it. For the most part, I think that I shall continue to stay put. I'll energize myself with the elixir of the Friday evenings and passionately research about changing back time on Sunday nights. I shall continue to spread my gospels over many important forums like dinners, movies, drinks, lunches, movies, lunches, brunches, movies, beaches……I shall continue to believe that concept of time is a mere aberration and I shall continue to be shocked that Bush was re-elected (until, of course, the great denizens of the US of A decide to lease out the White House to Elmer Fudd or perhaps, even Arnold). In short, I shall make minimal changes to the onerous life that I lead with great ardor.

And changing nothing also means that I have don’t have to update this page. As much I want to say that I shall fill these pages with some dazzling thoughts, I fear that it’ll be slightly difficult to overheat my little cerebra (in case I need it in the future to save the world from an invasion from Venus). But if you think that you see the power of a Chanakya or even the potential of a Yogi Berra in these blogs, feel free to send me a big cheque. After putting it to good use, I shall then send my war notice to honorable squrriels of south-west Maibu. But till then I’ll continue to derive pleasure of doing nothing and achieving a few things like snatching away 278 seconds of people’s time by creating a façade of profound blogs.

Thinking about a Box!!

I was recently confronted with a situation where someone ordered me to ‘think outside the box.’ Those thundering words hit me hard and all I could think of is a box. More specifically, it was a wooden cuboid box, just like the ones the movers use. I conjecture that my box was about 20 x 12 x 8 and needed some finishing and a paint job as well.

I don’t know if this only me, but I could tell you it took me some time to get out of the non-existent box and back to where I was. Essentially in the process of thinking outside the box, I created a box and found myself thinking how to get out of it!

I don’t want to dissect the box further but I realized that an effective way to impose roadblocks on a thought process is to hurl something that has a colorful metaphor attached to it. In fact you can use this technique to direct a thought process. For example, imagine that your boss asks you for a status update on one of the projects. If you don’t know what to say, you can tell him that it is about time to something be done about the entire dog and pony show as enough money was spent to choke a cow. You can also tell him that the company must embark on juggling picked onions and ensure that from soup to nuts no one is hitting the hay. It may not get you the raise that you wanted but you may have sucessfully confused him so much that now he can’t even see his nose in front of his face!

As you probably figured out, I’m not a big proponent of idiomatic conversations but when leaders of nations say on national television that they’ll hunt ‘em, smoke ‘em out of their holes and kill ‘em, it makes me rethink. Beating around the bush is not necessarily a bad idea especially when you don’t necessarily know who and where the so called "‘em" are! It is atleast better than getting the wrong "‘em" and claiming that this is what you meant!!

Before I digress too much, here is a list of idioms that you can hurl at people that you talk to. The most effective way to use them is in the middle of a heated conversation and thus control the tempo and the direction of the discussion. Even if you don’t intend to use them, it does make some interesting reading.

If your wondering what happened to me when I couldn’t think outside the box, I was subjected to a 1 hour seminar where they taught me various methods to think outside the box. I was also given a multi-page handout that illustrated the difference between thinking outside the box and thinking inside it! Well, they may have defined the box for me, but I still don’t seem to do any better. Wonder why?

Of Maori Chieftains and Titanium Bricks

I havent posted for a while now and if you are wondering what exactly on God's Green Earth I 'm doin', then you are in luck. I am going to tell you something so profound that you'll even fail to understand what I intend to mean. Thats okay, dont maim yourself for that. But if you are one of those nasty egotistical individuals who doesnt really care about the platonic activities of fellow mortals and yet find yourself reading this then, my dear friend, you are not really what you think you really are! Now I think must go easy on 'really', really. Oh well...

As you probably figured out, I'm try to beat the extraordinary ennui surrounding me by trying to come up something so boring that'll even make Night Shyamalan's piece of absolute crap, The Village, look good! For those who havent seen it, make sure you take your sleeping bag with you. Might come handy, trust me!

Anyways, coming back to my recent engagements, I was wondering if anyone would believe if I told them that I am actually a Maori Chieftain and have been hired by the CIA to spy on those I shall not speak of! If you dont believe me, then I'll have to warn you to watch your back the next time you enter an empty elevator! But if you do believe me (please let me know who you are) then I think you must have hit your head with a Titanium Brick. Get it straightened out, buddy, and if possible give me the Titanium Brick! I'm sure I can come up with better uses, maybe after knocking you down.

Well, I think you can see exactly where I'm headed next - thats right absolutely nowhere. So before you issue a bunch of fatwas, I promise to post something lil' less demented the next time.
Oh btw, the CIA story is all but not true.

1.6180339887498948482045868.......

The title is not some gibberish. On the contrary, it is the most amazing number in the world. In fact, it is so mysterious that some people even have atoned it Godly status. It is not for nothing that it called the Golden Ratio or the Divine proportion.

Read this article that appeared in The Guardian and you'll know what I mean. For those interested in a Mathematical Explanation, you can read it here at Mathworld's website. Understandably, people have been fascinated by this number for a very long time and this website contains some very interesting history about the Golden Ratio.

I was more than amazed when I first stumbled across this number. It seems that in all the apparent chaos that the world seems to be in, there actually exists an underlying order. An order that we are not aware of or may be something that we know, yet dont recoginize! This number definitely provides food for some philosophical thought.

Obviously, lots of books have been written about it. Mario Livio's book, The Golden Ratio : The Story of PHI, the Worlds Most Astonishing Number, seems to be extremely interesting. One of the book's reviewers said that Livio leads us through innumerable examples of the golden number in the book - examples as varied as the breeding patterns of rabbits to optics of light rays - where the same golden ratio appears again and again and finally Livio asks the question, "Is God a Mathematician?" I intend to read the book as soon as possible and will let you all about it - if I feel like it!

Before I warp this post, this is by far the most accurate calculation of the golden ratio I found. A never-ending number indeed!

Indeed a Grand Canyon

Earlier in the day I was sorting the pictures of my recent visit to Grand Canyon. Just a look at the photographs makes me want to go back to the place. Oh! What a sight it was.

There's something for everybody to marvel at the place. Geologists will love to study the rock formations at the canyon, Naturalists will want to research the complex ecology that the canyon supports, Explorers will want to unravel the mystery that surrounds the canyon, Historians will seek to understand what the canyon has recorded for centuries, Artists will seek inspiration from this wonder and the rest of us can just stand there and be mesmerized by its the majestic presence!

None of man's creations can ever come close to this truly extraordinary sculpture that nature has created. Standing there at the canyon, you see life in all its glory. And the Canyon stands there, like an ol' grandfather, smiling at the life forms that thrive on it, that live on it and those that it has seen evolve. Way down below is the artist that created the canyon - the River Colorado flowing with vigor and youthful zest, continuing to wind its way around the canyon. One of the most enchanting sights is to watch the entire Canyon sparkle gloriously as it greets the sun in the morning and later bids adieu to it. I was lucky to witness the latter and hope to go back to see the former as well.

The documentary, the Hidden of Secrets of Grand Canyon, by Destination Cinema throws a glance at the history of the Canyon. Information about the documentary and a trailer can be found here. While it is very well made, it is all but a feeble attempt to explain the canyon. No movie, no book can describe it. There is indeed nothing like being there and witnessing it solemnly - away from the mayhem of life. If there is any place in the world that is worth re-visiting, this one surely is!

Why, Robot !?!

I recently saw the Will Smith movie I, Robot and I tried very hard to find one good reason why the movie was made. The producers, in a single-minded quest to create mind-blowing action scenes, forget to add a motive behind the 105 min crap they dish out. This movie will deeply scar Asimov's soul for it claims to be inspired by one of his stories. But the fact, however, is that no one needs any sort of inspiration to come up with story like this.

This is one movie where you'd find popcorns much more interesting and much more exquisitely designed. If you don’t buy popcorns at the movie theatre and end up at this movie, God save you and your kind.

As one movie critic beautifully puts it, after the movie, I, Robot, "maybe I should have my own wiring examined."

Thus I enter the world of blogging...

Blig, Blong and Blog. That is pretty much the reason why I've begin to blog. If you didnt quite get it, think about it. If you have even have the slightest inkling as to what it may mean, do let me know. I'm quite as eager as you are to find out! But till then, I think I'll go ahead and start rambling, mumbling, grumbling and perhaps even try spreading something intellectual in the future posts.