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Deal with the devil

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In 2008 when the United states elected their first non-white president, most of the world saw it as a welcome change for a country whose past is drenched with the blood of colored people, but what these folk ignored was how much it would irk the red part of the country. Their response has been so extreme that the entire world will have to face the repercussions for at least the next decade and the country may have to deal with it for next several decades. The country that was Obama nation, has become an abomination is less than 4 years.

One useful thing that happened here was that they showed what they really are. I initially drafted this post on 1st of October, well before the 1st vote for the 2020 US elections was cast. I was under the impression that the country was in for 4 more years of misery and we were in for 4 more years of laughter at their expense. Well, I turned out to be both right and wrong. 74 million Americans negated the 70 million Americans who wanted 4 more years of Trump. Even if you disregard his pre-political life, what he has said and done in the last 4 years should have convinced any sane person to not vote for him again.

It would be the equivalent of Indians electing a guy who lives like Vijay Malya and talks like Kamal R Khan, becoming the laughimg stock of the world and then again deciding to re-elect the same person.

This number 70 million. The largest ever vote for a loosing candidate in an US election is therefore a much more important number than the 74 million that Joe Biden got to win the election. There is an old Indian saying “यथा राजा तथा प्रजा” which roughly translates to ‘As is the king, so are the subjects’. It still relevant in today’s age where democracies have replaced monarchies in most of the countries. Trump’s subjects were mostly psychopaths or his partners in past crimes. But the word subject has also a new meaning with respect to the changes in the way leaders function. The modern day subjects are instead the citizens of the country. Thus the saying has to be turned on its head to be relevant now.

यथा प्रजा तथा राजा. As are the citizens, so is there elected representative. Trump not only showed us what he is but he has also what America really is. It’s a place where people from other countries go to make money and for this money, they tolerate the bigotry they are subjected to. Most of the world thinks that last four years are an aberration and come next year the status quo that existed till 2016 will return. But reality might be far from that. In 2017, this blog started with a prediction of what America would look like under Trump. Now I’m going to make another prediction of what the next few decades will look like.

I predict that Democrats will retain presidency for a long time and the civil unrest in America will keep worsening. Here is how it is going to play out…. Assuming that Trump doesn’t pull off a coup and stays in power.

Come January 2021, democrats are going to fall one seat short of senate majority, meaning they will not be able to do anything significant they planned to do once in office. Trump will keep hammering away on Twitter like a psychotic reality show judge humiliating its contestants. Rupublican law makers, who are now accepting the reality that Trumpism is here to stay with America will keep supporting Trump for the fear of not getting votes from the Trump base. Now that he has lost the immunity of being the president, there will be a flurry of law suits and investigations against his businesses. He will get convicted for a few minor things but will not have to do any jail time because the Republicans and the judges he appointed will see to it that most of the sentences are in fines and settlements. Trump will run again in 2024 and lose. He will continue to cry fowl and play victim. He will lose by a greater margin then now because some of the Americans who voted for him this time will come to terms with who he actually is. But the majority of the under educated white American voters will stick with trump.

One variable in this prediction is Vladimir Putin staying healthy and in power. If he doesn’t and someone else takes over and decides to humiliate America furthur by releasing evidence of all the allegations of interference, It may pave a way for more Americans reevaluating their allegiances.

Why do I make such bold and gloomy predictions? Data suggests that an average trump voter is non college educated and white. In other words ignorant. It will take generations and great effort in terms of educating them and their offspring of the realities of the world. The current political setup makes it extremely difficult to do it. After all this is a country that still refuses to accept metric system.

These people still live in their bubbles of outdated principles and are resist any reality checks. Most of the world has moved beyond race superiority, mainly because of the globalization. There is no turning the dials back. The anger and frustration of having to live through the precidency of a black person for 8 years made these gullible Americans make a deal with the Devil. Now there is no way they can break this deal. All of us have to now endure this new reality. The non white people in the US have no other choice but to make a deal with democrats. Because democrats say that they represent so many types of people with such varied priorities, they will not be able to cater the any of the needs. People in America will keep pulling their hair out, trolling each other and screaming at each other and the rest of the world will sit back and enjoy the show.

Vantage Point

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Mississippi Burning is a 1988 movie based on a true incident. In June 1964, 3 civil rights workers disappeared and the vehicle they were traveling was found burnt. After 2 months of federal investigation their bodies were found buried. They were all shot. Their crime? Trying to get voting rights to black people. 9 were arrested including a cop and a pastor. The maximum sentence given out was for 10 years and no-one served for more than 6 years. Oh yeah, and the jury said pastor was not guilty because they couldn’t convict a… ‘Pastor’. The all white jury was later found to have some former KKK members.

56 years later, May 2020, Minneapolis – the capitol of Minnesota was burning. Reason, a black man died (technically murdered) in police custody, in broad day light, on the street. So, has anything changed? Did it get worse? What’s wrong with America? What’s wrong with Americans? What’s wrong with white people of America?

It’s been just more than 3 years since I have started writing this blog. My first ever blog (in my opinion) was my best work. That’s because I had pondered over those thoughts for years before I started typing them down. In hindsight I was kind of prophetic. Watching these protests unfold across the United states and later across the world, I wanted answers. I was 13,022 km away, but had a unique vantage point. Unlike popular opinion, I don’t think the white supremacists hate colored people, I think they are shit scared of them and they are paranoid. For that matter, Not just I think a lot of people are scared of black people. Not just black people, in a lot of countries, the race which is majority is paranoid about a race that is minority. Except in India I don’t understand the rationale behind it.

India which has always been predominantly Hindu, was ruled by Islamic invaders for 600 years and then was handed over to the Christian invaders who ruled it for a neat 190 years. It was under the rule of a minority that never pandered to the needs of their citizens. So, I do understand that the Majority of India doesn’t trust their minorities. Well, not all minorities, the Christians do not directly represent the British. Indians are not paranoid about Buddhists or Jains, not even Parsis who are as their name suggests Persians who sought refuge in India when their country was invaded. But Muslims have long reminded Indian people of atrocities that the Mughals committed and I do understand the psyche behind the distrust.

But in Europe and Americas, where black people were enslaved and forcefully brought in and exploited for generations. Even today, most of them do not have the social or economic means to displace the Majority. So, what do they fear? Are they afraid of revenge?

Side note: Why are only black people called African Americans in the US? Why are people from countries north of Sahara desert like Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt or Algeria called Middle east people? If doesn’t make any sense.

– A random thought

I have theory of relativity (not as complex as Einstein’s). The amount of fear or paranoia between 2 races is directly proportional to the relative difference of skin color. Fairer races believe that they are superior to darker races. I believe this is the subtle conditioning of brains using a tool called language.

skin: worldwide distribution of skin color variations - Students | Britannica Kids | Homework Help

Language plays a large part in how we perceive the world and we multiple languages have repeatedly hammered the idea that White is good and Black is bad. Which list would you prefer to be on? Black list or a White list? Would you be happy being the black sheep of the family? Don’t you think that such phrases cause a Unconscious bias in your head?

Indian Truck Art on Behance | Truck art, Art drawings simple, Pop art design

Now coming back to America, though banning gun ownership can drastically reduce the race related murders to just verbal or physical assaults and save lives, lobbying of fire arm manufacturers and the 2nd amendment of their constitution make it impossible to stop Americans from owning Guns. Argument of pro-gun folk in America is that it is necessary for their safety. Any civilian saying that they need a gun to protect themselves reeks of cowardice. This adding to the paranoid nature of Americans is what is causing so many problems. Why else would someone chase and hunt down a person jogging/running through a neighborhood?

So, the logical choice would be to educate people that being darker doesn’t infer character. We can get rid of this cowardice in future generations by having more diverse schools and exposing children to more cultures. As for the adults, I think they need to develop a new vantage point to see the world. Unless this happens now and happens fast, some 60 years from now another city/state will be burning and a some other confused soul will be writing a blog (or what ever this thing will be called then) about how nothing has changed since June 2020.

Also, we need to clean up our languages.

Adapt or Perish

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Today, I came across an article by Anne Applebaum of the Atlantic. She writes about how the new corona-virus has blown America’s false notions of superiority out of water. America has traditionally believed itself to be superior to every one else. They believe themselves not just to be better than the rest of the world but the best. So, when the information about Covid-19 epidemic broke out, the entire far-west (if China, Japan and South east Asia are far-east to the US, then they are far-west to us. Right?) was first very critical about the food habits of the Chinese, then far more critical about the way the communist regime failed in controlling the spread of the virus. The initial denial of a contagion, threatening doctors who tried to speak out and finally the lock down of an entire province. Each and every move by China was criticized by the western media. The New York times used the title ‘Made in China’ for an article on this new disease.

Now let us see how the US responded when the disease breached their borders. Was the government transparent about the situation? Did the government take the situation seriously? Did the government make sure that people have enough testing and treatment facilities? Did the US government allow private non-profit laboratories who volunteered for free testing? Why use the past tense? Lets ask, Is the US government doing enough today? The true and ironic answer for all the above questions would be an big NO. They stand 8th in the world with 5213 cases, with the case count rising rapidly everyday, they might be ‘the best’ here too. But how did a country like the US end up in such a situation? As Ms Applebaum reasons, just like the Japan in 1853, the US has been in a state of deep slumber of false pride for a long time now. Its failure to update its ways with a illogical argument of them being ‘American ways’ is now coming back to bite them. Do you know the number of countries in the world that officially use a non-metric system? 3 (Liberia, Myanmar and the US).

My mind has this incurable condition called the Butterfly effect condition. Don’t try to google it, I coined the name for it. The butterfly effect in lay-mans terms equates to saying a butterfly fluttering its wings can cause a cyclone. It may not make sense when put this way. In another way, if you have enough data, you can connect a large event to a in-obvious trigger. My brain is like that, anything I see or read can trigger a topic that is not very obvious. So, it you talk about butterflies, I may end up thinking about cyclones. This article in Atlantic was one such trigger. If you notice, most of my blogs start with a point and end up in a very different zone. Now back to the topic or in other words, back to all the stuff that came up to my mind when I read the article on the United states and Coronavirus.

The failure to adapt or update has caused many kingdoms and countries to fall/fail. A very good example of this is India. Just like Japan, India has always been a different place. The culture, the languages, the religion were all unique. So was the war fare. Indian kings used elephants in war for centuries, battles were also fought only from dawn to dusk. This meant that Moguls has repeatedly tried and failed to invade India for an extended period of time. So, when Moguls updated their war tactics and changed the rules, by using trumets & drums to scare the elephants and then attacked in the night, India fell into the hands of Moguls and remained there for 800 years. Then came the British with their muskets and cannons. Moguls lost because they literally took knives to a gun fight. So, not updating to the latest techniques in warfare has ultimately led to the demise of moguls and eventually the downfall of India as an economic power.

Economic history of the world

We have see the falling giant and the fallen giants, what about the tiny? What about people with humble beginnings in lower or middle class families? From wealth to personal preferences to habits, people need to keep updating themselves. The successful need it to sustain and others need it to be successful. Going back to America for a moment, when the country was formed using pounds for weight and Fahrenheit was OK. But when there were better alternatives, they chose not to adopt them. When you are born in a remote village and do not know any thing about the world, it was acceptable a decade ago. But when you have a smart phone with a 4G connection and still choosing to remain in your well, then you will quickly become stale and irrelevant. Updating doesn’t mean moving from Orkut to Facebook to Instagram to tiktok. It means upgrading your intellectual coefficient and expanding your knowledge.

An Italian building stating that it was constructed in A.D. MDCCCLXXXVIII (1888 A.D). Imagine modern Italy still using their old numerals.

Now a days, everyone is familiar with updates and upgrades. Either your phone or computer would prompt for an update at least once a month. This is because the threats keep on updating themselves, so these devices need to continuously improve to stay safe. Similarly, the challenges and demands of life are changing everyday. You have you adopt and adapt, else you perish.

Be open to change and embrace it.

Change is the only constant in life

– Heraclitus

The Judge, the jury and the executioner

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It is a fact that no two people are alike. I am not talking about appearances, DNA. finger prints, iris scans or all the other bullshit that the governments are using to tag us like some endangered species. I am talking about the nature, qualities, behavior and other things that are almost impossible to quantify or classify. There are words in every language to describe these things but the combinations and scale of intensity of these things is so unique to everyone that we would have to invent a new word for each one of us.

My brain is some of these at times, many of these at other times but never all of these.

As a person who seldom makes a good first impression, I want to ask you this. How long does it take for you to judge a person? But, more importantly, I would like to ask you. Why do you need to judge another person? What purpose does it serve? The only people in the world who should be concerned about what a person is is a psychiatrist. What is the urge to classify and categorize every person in your life?

We do that right from the moment a person in born into this world. We put them into one of the 12 buckets available based on the day they were born. They are called sun signs or moon signs, depending on the place you are born. I don’t believe in astrology. I am so self-centered that I assume that no-one knows more than me, so I start with a presumption that every one is wrong and accept anything only after fact checking. I am like Sheldon cooper with out a PhD. But I do have a confession to make. In my first week of my first job, I was bored and someone send me a link to a website that has all the content from Linda Goodman’s book – Sun signs. As any one would do I clicked on my sun sign and started reading.

No, I still remember the website and the content so well because I was very surprised it to be so accurate. Its been over 11 and a half years since I read it for the first time. But over the last decade I have been revisiting the site. As they say, age generally brings maturity. What I took in from this website changes over this period. The 21 year old was blown away by the content. The 25 year old started looking into the content for other sun signs. Finally the 30 year old understood why the 21 year old was blown away. The content for all the sun signs is highly positive. Even some of the negative traits shown in a positive way. This makes every one like their own stuff. Though I am still a little spooked about the accuracy content, I have also realized that I am not just what was in that web page. There is much more to me. May be it represents 10-15% of me.

If I were on a mission to make every one like me. I would have to print out those pages and distribute them like visiting cards. Underlining the less desirable traits in me and asking people to bear with me because they were manufacturing defects. On the other side, every one around me will have to make an algorithm out of the content to figure out the probable reaction I give to different situations. Its highly impractical and also illogical. Because I change every day, the content of the page has remained same since 1st December 1984. When I say I change every day, I don’t mean like a chameleon. I mean that I evolve everyday. Based on different circumstances, I keep changing my opinions and thus my responses to same events keep changing.

But we keep trying to stereo type people based on gender, region, religion, blah blah blah. Thereby we miss the point. Its none of your business. Deal with people in a case to case basis. In each case, start with a clean slate. It takes a lot of self control to do this. I do digress sometimes. But eventually try to go back to do the correct thing. React to situation based on the facts and only facts of the case.

Don’t try to be the Judge, Jury and Executioner for everyone around you. Judges are corrupt, Jury are gullible and Executioner don’t get to use their brains. In the current society, if a person with a criminal record is found at the scene of another crime, they assume he did it.

Next time you see a news article with something bad written about somebody, try reading it as – a person did a bad thing rather than a bad person did a thing.Don’t generalize. If you do, you will be a person doing the same bad thing again and again.

The numb and number

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Anesthesia with Amnesia

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Written by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson , 1988

I first heard the song “Every body knows” in opening credits of the movie Justice League. It was a song filled with pessimism. It made sense, the plot starts where Batman vs Superman ended. Superman is dead. All hope for mankind is dead along with it. 

(Side note: I have always found movies from DC comics to be light years ahead of Marvel in their quality. Marvel is a money making machine where as DC is a purists delight)

But the original song doesn’t have the same melancholy in it. It feels like Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson who wrote and composed it were being very pragmatic. Though the song was criticized for being bitterly pessimistic. But I disagree. It is one of the most realistic songs ever.

If you believe that everything in the world is fair, you are naive if I have to be gentle. Stupid if I have to be straightforward. But it may not be your fault. The people who are dealt with a good hand in life always make sure that the others don’t realize it. Just like the game of poker, if you want to win more money, you need others to feel safe at the very least and over confident & cocky at the very best.

There have been many ways to keep you distracted enough not to know your own plight. Mobile phones and social media have taken the baton now. Now a days, people treat their mobile phones like a drug addict treats his stash. They are obsessed and addicted to them. A single person or an organization cannot achieve this. It has to be a conscious nexus of various power centers.

Blackberry messenger, first introduced in 2005 was the pioneer in multi-media messaging and voice telephony over a data connection. They did it efficiently and securely. They respected privacy of their users. Then came the iPhone in 2007 followed by Android phones in 2010. Tons of applications started popping up. But 2G was slow and expensive which limited the use of these devices to serious users. In the next decade, the phones became cheaper along with the internet. 2G was replaced by 3G and 4G.

The cost of the infrastructure didn’t go down. The profit margins did not increase. The biggest change was the source of income. Till 2010, profit was made by selling mobile phones. Now the profit making starts after the purchase. Mind you most of the people use their phones because they are affordable on top of being addictive.

The society has somehow transformed into one where four of the five senses are mostly used for interaction with a mobile phone. Phones still don’t have an odour (yet). At least it is not mainstream yet. But the day is not far.

We are growing numb to the realities of the world. We are in a way becoming that is why we start seeing pragmatic people as pessimists. Deep down I believe “Every body knows” this, but they are just far too distracted to realize it.