Transhumanism is supposed to immortalize us. It involves uploading all memories and motions into computers so that we can live as human machines. This is fascinating as well as scary. Living forever is a nice ability, as long as it is in your hand to shut your system down whenever you feel like. Or you should be able to go into hibernation, self-programmed to wake up after a certain period, or when there is an emergency.
But this can also give rise to a species of super-humans that cannot be easily destroyed, that don’t tire, and that can change bodies in case some real damage occurs. In the beginning this technology will only be available to a selected few and this where the danger begins. What if a few rich people decide that only they can use the technology, and the rest of the people are turned into slaves? Humans have this tendency to enslave weaker, less privileged human beings whenever they get a chance, whether there is a valid need or not. They enslave merely to feel powerful and I’m sure no matter how much science and technology advance the basic attitude is going to remain the same.
But I am not against the idea as some people are. Lots of opportunities will be there for humans if the factor of death is removed from the same. Take for instance scientific discoveries and space exploration. If we don’t die we can continue our work for, let us say, hundreds of years. Imagine what could have been achieved if Newton, Ramanujam and Einstein could work together? What if Aryabhatta could use the latest space technology to study planets and other heavenly bodies? What mathematical fetes could Descartes have achieved with new computer software?
Of course with given scientific knowledge Transhhumanism is just a concept but it can some day really change the way we live and die, if dying doesn’t become obsolete by that time. Above all there will remain no such thing as disability, as long as we’re not talking about mental disability (but these days it is very difficult to make out who is mentally challenged and who is not). Another benefit of this technology will manifest when we totally mess up the environment. Since we won’t have biological bodies, we won’t need oxygen, and may be not even food. We’ll be able to live on man-made satellites in the sky or under water, where there is still lots of space. People who are not much inclined towards moving around will be able to share a mainframe with millions of other brains and this means millions of people will be able to live in a single room.
Sounds quite gloomy, but if you can create your own virtual reality (I assume by then technology will be able to give us lots of disk space and processing power within a single room) then it won’t be that boring.
A man named Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid has been arrested for posting vulgar tirades at an Orkut group called "I hate Sonia" against Sonia Gandhi, who is the Congress chairperson. The man was arrested with Google’s assistance, as the police needed to know his IP address etc.
As Michael Arrington of TechCrunch notes, what’s perfectly legal in America or Europe might be out and out illegal in other countries and since people on their own assume (without reading policies and terms and conditions etc.) that their data is safe with the social networking websites, they post whatever they feel like.
Now, I’m not comparing this to murderers and pedophiles, and I’m not even supporting posting vulgar messages against all and sundry, but I think information like "we will reveal your identity if the law of the land requires us to do so" should be boldly displayed on the home page.
Anonymity is bad and it is good too. For instance there are many blogs on the Internet run by anonymous writers who have plenty to say against the government. What if tomorrow the government begins a crackdown on these bloggers and starts tracking them with open support from blogging companies and server space providers? Such policies should be revealed, in bold, when one is about to sign up.
Since Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid was arrested at the behest of a political activist and since there is a very thin line that differentiates criminals and politicians, some human rights watch group must keep track of what happens with him.
More information:
In my previous post I talked about the food becoming scarce and dear. The thought of food became a catalyst to another thought that has been coming to my mind for a few weeks, and that thought is, why don’t we feed those who don’t have food? This is no social work, this is nation-building.
I’ll talk from India’s point of view; we desperately need a thinking revamp when it comes to feeding ourselves and the others. Yesterday Alka and I were sitting in the balcony observing kids going to their schools, followed by mothers-teachers (in our building most of the mothers are teachers because this building was constructed by the society of teachers from a particular school). The children seemed to have no spirits. It was morning, and ideally they should have been full of vigor and enthusiasm; where was that charm of greeting a new day? We attributed this to food.
In India we stuff our bellies (those who can) but never give a second thought to the kind of food we are eating. We equate eating lots of food with nourishment. This misconception must be changed. We don’t need to eat lots of food, we need to eat good food.
The other thing is, we must routinely feed poor families that cannot afford food. As I mentioned above, this is not social work. There are lots of disparities in our country and that is why we are not progressing the way we should have. The poor family you try to feed might turn out to be a pack of assholes but that’s not the point. Feeding poor families will achieve two things that our country desperately needs:
- To a tiny extent it will bridge the gap between the haves and the havenots. It will sensitize us towards each other. There is lots of animosity: the rich dislike the poor and the poor dislike the rich and I see this everywhere. Someday this feeling is going to explode and nobody will be able to control the ensuing catastrophe. Knowing the ratio of haves and havenots you can easily make out who will suffer the most at the hands of whom. Feeding will at least initiate a contact.
- It will improve the health of people around you. With better health they will be able to work more. Take for instance your sweeper, or your maid. If you feed them, even twice a week, it will significantly improve their health and they will do their jobs better. Gradually, may be in the next 5 to 10 years, a small portion (because we cannot reach every nook and corner of the country) of the population will be healthier, happier.
From unhealthy food, and the lack of basic food, stem most of the problems India faces today. I think good food gives rise to good thoughts and good principals.
Sharing food is not as difficult as it seems. Small lifestyle changes can enable you to give food to the poor. If you eat 3 pizzas every month, eat two. If you go to a restaurant 5 times in a month, go 3 times. Don’t throw away the food after parties and marriages: let the poor have it. Be innovative and reduce your electricity bill and use that money for the extra food you need to purchase. Similarly, there are many cost-cuttings you can carry out to arrange enough money to feed a poor family.
Bush says the price of food has increased because people in India as well as in China are eating more. What does he intend to say, that it was better when people in these countries were impoverished and stayed malnourished? Some studies have claimed that 73% of food in the United States is disposed of, uneaten (read this). People simply consign the food on their plates to the garbage can as soon as they don’t feel like consuming it; and they take big portions even when they don’t intend to eat the whole thing. So much for causing food shortage by eating more by people in other countries.
I’m not denying that food habits in India have changed. In fact even at our house we eat a lot better than what we used to eat when we were kids. We were not poor back then but there was not much awareness regarding food-eating options and to be frank, not much was available. Due to overall progress and globalization people have access to a variety of comestibles, irrespective of the escalating costs.
But you cannot blame people for eating better, especially when people in your own country moronically go on wasting food and fuel despite the galling shortage. The problem is not the shortage, it is a litany of bad decisions. Currently, almost 30% of corn produce in the USA is converted into ethanol and similar trends are being observed in the EU where different governments are setting up targets for producing more and more biofuel.
In India more food rots in the godowns than is eaten. Shady marketers horde food so that they can sell it at the times of scarcity and in the process lots of it is destroyed, and the government doesn’t do much about this, and this must be happening in many countries. In fact numerous countries are experiencing food riots already.
People in Cuba can use PCs at home now. If you think this is the news from the early 90s you are mistaken. The communist government in Cuba never allowed its citizens to use computers. The Internet is still banned there. Empowerment and access to information are the most scary things for such regimes. Sometimes I feel certain people deserve such Draconian governments; they are too lazy or laid-back to overthrow their governments.
A couple of days ago I was reading in a forum that countries like India, China, Saudi Arabia, etc. don’t allow their citizens to use VoIP services like Skype because this will give them unrestricted power to communicate. Actually, Skype has many wonderful subscription features that allow you to make unlimited calls to landline phones as well as cellphones all over the world for a fixed, nominal, monthly fee. Only recently having a telephone itself was a luxury in India.
I don’t trust people easily, and I don’t take it in the negative sense. My life has taught me pretty good lessons on trust. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t entertain any sort of trust. For instance, these days sometimes I outsource content writing work and then I have to trust that the writers will finish the job in a decent manner, on time. Then, I trust that my clients will pay me for the content I deliver them. But this is as far as it goes: I don’t trust in the goodness of people just like that. This lady did and paid with her life. I trust very close family members though.
It so happened that yesterday I worked till 2:30 in the night and eventually when Alka and I settled down to have dinner I started surfing the channels to check whether we could watch something trashy (we have recently started watching Desperate Housewives, and Cheaters you see, gradually graduating from the Disney Channel stuff) while eating. We generally watch news but every news channel was showing that kidney king’s arrest and as usual, was overdoing it.
I found a channel that was showing some men’s program where they were talking about how to party, how to go to parties and how to organize parties. There was this the-king-of-cool-type guy who is very much “into the party scene” and he was enlightening the viewers with all his gayish gaiety about how to be a perfect host and a perfect guest.
Every aspect of the party should be rocking: music should be rocking, drinks should be rocking, food should be rocking, the place should be rocking, the neighborhood should be rocking, the hosts should be rocking and their pets should be rocking, and the guests should be rocking and if even one of these is not rocking it is very very shocking.
And what happens if one of these archetypal aspects are not rocking? Although it may leave the hosts with a lifelong trauma requiring long-term therapy to come to terms with the eventuality, he has no choice but to LEAVE the party. Just imagine how crushing it must be for the hosts, but so are the lives and ways of those who take the art of partying to unassailable heights.
He said that you should follow the dress code strictly — yes, many party invitations mention the dress code — and it is okay to be thrown out of a party if you don’t follow the dress code. Never arrive overdressed (something like wearing an overcoat, felt hat, dark big goggles, leather gloves and gumshoes) and never arrive underdressed (something like wearing just a thong or an underwear, or just a condom). But then he quickly added that no rules should be followed when you go to a party (this implies, we innocently used our meager, non-existent knowledge of the great partydom and hypothesized ourselves, that sometimes you can overdress and underdress). In between the interviewer advertised about a few music players (most of them cost more than Rs. 1,20,000) that can really make your party rocking.
He told the audience that it is not at all OK to be not to be invited to parties. One must be an active member of the city’s party circle, square, triangle, tetrahedron, and all sorts of geometric representations. If it is not so, you are not happening, you practically don’t have a life, you better not think you exist and outrage the decent party-goers. Man, if you want to be a party person you must idealize this gentleman. Right now I cannot remember his name but it was something like Nandani or Chandani. He is quite well-known in Delhi’s party circuits.
Anyway, as with wide eyes and gaping mouths (although we were eating, in between we did manage that awestruck look without spilling out the chewed contents of our mouths) we were absorbing these ambrosia-like rare pearls of wisdom, he delivered the cul-de-sac judgement, and that was, if you party you go there (he pointed upwards, like a prophet) and if you don’t party you remain there (he pointed downwards, with great, well-meant disdain). I don’t know about Alka but by the time we got over with the program, and our food, I had been left totally crushed. I had a complex that I had never had.
All my life, if I can remember I must have gone to 4 parties and 3 of them were the lowly mohalla parties. By the party standards I have remained there (pointing downwards). The realization has hit me with an amplified clarity after watching that life-altering program, and no wonder I’m struggling all the time. All these years I have been toiling like an animal to achieve my goals and all I had to do was somehow wriggle my way into the cities party circles (or squares, triangles, etc.). Not that it is an easier fete; you have to be really privileged to join the elite class of partygoers, but still had it been revealed to me earlier I could have at least tried. All these years! dammit.
So hey party gods of NOIDA and Delhi (both cities will do)! Invite me to one of your glorious gatherings you call parties. Let me sip the heavenly cocktails and unleash my dormant spirits of greatness. Grace my booty by letting me shake it in your esteemed company and let me invoke deities of success. I’m waiting with expectant eyes and bated breath to be declared as a guy who has finally arrived (or crashed-in, whatever you deem fit to call).
Whatever is happening in Mumbai is sad as well as shocking. If you can be attacked and bullied like this in your own country where are you safe then? The recent violence against north Indians in Mumbai is nothing unique; it mostly happens against communities and now it is happening against people belonging to a different region. This whole mess was started by Bala Saheb Thakarey a few decades ago and this political minion called Raj Thackery is trying to re-ignite the old hatred against non-Maharashtrians. This happens when unjust, misguided political issues are not suppressed with brute legal force.
Many years ago immediately after the independence Sardar Vallabhai Patel consolidated various wayward states and helped build a unified India. Ever since then every Indian is free to go anywhere for the purpose of living and occupation and it is one of the fundamental rights given by our constitution. If a few Maharashtrians don’t like people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh or for that matter Punjab coming to Mumbai and settling down there, well too bad; nothing can stop them as long as Mumbai doesn’t become a part of some other country.
I read on the Internet that the entire Mumbai film industry was wallowing in financial doldrums and it was only Amitabh Bachchan who gave hits after hits and secured the jobs of so many technicians and other workers belonging to Maharastra. What has Raj Thackeray done for Maharastra except for instigating people to commit violence and destruction? His political career in Shiv Sena took a nosedive when he allegedly got involved in a political murder. So what has he done for the betterment of Maharashtra in general and Mumbai in particular? Whatever Mumbai is today it owes everything to people from all the states.
Actually, migration happens everywhere. People move from city to city, state to state, and even country to country to seek better prospects. He says that the states from where the migrants are coming should develop enough so that the migration is reduced. Whereas it is true that Uttar Pradesh and Bihar must develop, migration to other cities and states is a natural phenomena. There are certain commercial activities that only happen in Mumbai. For instance, if a person wants to work in movies, he or she will have to go to Mumbai because the film industry is there. All major companies have set up their offices in Mumbai and when they hire people from other states those people have to come to Mumbai. So it has got nothing to do with just development; there are many other factors involved. It’s like, there are many Maharashtrians who go to the USA and other countries.
How should Raj Thackeray be treated, we were discussing this at home and Alka rightly said that he shouldn’t be arrested because then he will needlessly become a “martyr” and this will give him political advantage. Rather he should be allowed to become obscure. Violence, of course should be controlled but it should be tackled as a law and order problem and not a political problem. Calling it a political problem will needlessly make the issue important.
Personally I would suggest that the people being targeted should get together and put up a joint front. Running and cowering will get them nowhere and it will only embolden the goons. Instead they should fight back. This will not result in more violence; the threat of retaliation often maintains peace. Communities are only targeted when they seem vulnerable. You won’t find Raj Thackeray coming to Delhi or Lucknow and giving inflammatory speeches against north Indians because he knows that there people will beat the shit out of him.
Apparently the people in Uttar Pradesh are retaliating in a very novel way; they check all the trains coming from Maharastra and when they find Maharashtrian passengers in the trains they garland them, hug them and offer them sweets.
Technorati Tags: mumbai violence, raj thakeray
In “The Last Mughal” William Dalrymple has very beautifully described the anguish Bahadurshah Zafar goes through when he is sent to exile. Although I’m not a landless soul my ambitions keep me away from getting too attached to the soil I dwell upon. I constantly tell myself that the place is not important, what you do, how you do, is. But still, the old smells, the bygone textures and the eddies of chimerical memories still come a visiting and make me want to dive into the valleys of yore. These are momentary reveries and I generally am more interested in things that are happening or about to happen, not that have happened. So my place is where I and my family reside for the moment.
Mai sent me Taslima Nasreen’s story (it’s published in Outlook but to read it there you need to log in first — so I’ve linked to another page with the entire story), and it really breaks your heart to know how attached she is to Bengal, and how betrayed she feels. The entire feeling is summed up here:
This is my beloved India , where I have been living
and writing on secular humanism, human rights and
emancipation of women. This is also the land where I
have had to suffer and pay the price for my most
deeply held and fundamental convictions, where not a
single political party of any persuasion has spoken
out in my favor, where no non-governmental
organization, women’s rights or human rights group has
stood by me or condemned the vicious attacks launched
upon me. This is an India I have never before known.
A person cannot live where she wants to live simply because she writes and expresses herself, and some people cannot digest what she expresses. As a state we have totally failed, as a mass ideology we have totally failed because what the foreign rulers did to us we are doing it to others. I personally don’t know how it feels to be uprooted because I have never felt rooted. First of all she never wanted to leave Bangladesh — her land — and finally when she found the same smell and texture of her ancestral soil in West Bengal she was again packed off to an alien environment. For what? Disagreeing? It’s really embarrassing for a country that such a treatment is meted out to a writer due to political and extremist reactions.
Technorati Tags: taslima nasreen
Update: A tradition being hundreds of years old doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck, but this is the reason that has been used to revoke the ban on jallikattu. Although the traditional bull fight took place at various places it was held under “supervision” but we all know in India what supervision really means. While revoking the ban the court has instructed that no cruelty should be meted out to the bulls for instance chili powder should not be blown into their eyes and nobody should pull their tails. Even if these instructions are strictly adhered to we can never be too sure; they might find some new ways to torment the poor animals. I hope this tradition fades away in the coming years.
The original post: What’s so martial about scores of men taming a bull blinded by throwing chilly powder into its eyes? If you are feeling so valorous then go out and fight with the goons and the corrupt who are constantly harassing the society. Join the army. Why torment an animal just to disguise your physical and mental impotency? This is not only barbaric it is pathetically shameful and it is good that the Supreme Court has decided to ban the fight in Tamil Nadu where this dark-age cruelty has continued for the past 400 years and in the last 10 years 200 people have been gored to death by the raging bulls. But I have no sad feeling for the dead people because they died doing what they wanted to do. I definitely feel sad for the bulls who have no say in all this.
Tradition is hard to contain; people protested even when evils like Sati and child marriage were banned. Mass protest against the ruling doesn’t mean the fight should be allowed to happen.
Technorati Tags: bullfighting
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