Friday, September 01, 2017

We may be killing and hurting less, but are we thinking about it more?

Steven Pinker might have some facts about there being less violence (at least in the developed world) on this planet than before, but I am with John Gray and don't believe humans have become peace-minded animals.

Truth: We are too busy with our smartphones to go out, riot and kill, and too fearful of army-like police and CCTVs everywhere, where even small crimes may result in big punishments.

Saying 'millennial' all the time doesn't mean we all have become more 'moral'. Doc Searls writes about the decline in usage of the term 'non-violence' in searches and books.

Use of non-violence term in books

Searches of 'non-violence'


Does it mean we mean we are not interested in 'non-violence'? Does it mean we are thinking about 'violence' more? Does it mean our language has changed, that we project our anger, frustrations and policies in other words when writing books or searching? I want to go with the third explanation. You?

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posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:22 PM 0 Comments

Modi Government = Sellers of Vaporware = Pivot Government

The massive failure of demonetization, one of the worst things done by an Indian government, affected every common Indian citizen. Old men saw their fixed deposit incomes go down. Small businesses shuttered down for months. Millions of workers lost their jobs. The unorganized sector, responsible for most jobs in the country, took a left hook (this government loves big business only). RBI's credibility took a big beating. Farmers couldn't get timely and adequate payments for their produce, resulting in protests and suicides. GDP growth slowed down.

The Modi government is best at two things:

1. Sell the public on fancy plans and slogans - They call all this vaporware in the software industry.
Three + years of this talkative ('vachaal') government and all India got was shitty phrases...'smart cities' anyone? Hope your street isn't flooded during this monsoon.

2. Announce new plans as soon as you learn about the failure of the existing plan - they call it pivoting in the software industry.
The habitually pivoting government explains the demonetization failure as saying it was all about a cashless economy anyway, as if cashless economy would take away all the corruption, and it didn't matter that the consumers and small businesses would have to pay the fees associated with all digital transactions.

The people of India are gullible and anxious people. They sent a bunch of dubious and mouthy people to power. If only we had acted as smart VCs and tried to see behind their marketing.

Remember 'shining india' of 2004? Actors from the same training institute that time too.

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posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:10 PM 0 Comments