It has been a month since i started consulting for the big IT firm. Day one was just a precursor to month one. A lot of frustration, a lot of complaints but invaluable and important lessons learnt. I am still trying to analyze all the information I have and trying to make sense of some of the absolutely ridiculous policies that seem to be in place.
The first thing that struck me was the restrictions that were in place especially on the IT infrastructure and data movement. All computers are centrally managed to the extent of wallpapers and screen savers. Computers are alloted only with XP, some ultra basic version of Office, the Lotus Notes client, Winzip and Acrobat Reader. There is a blanket ban on all binary downloads from the internet and I am told that acquiring a license for any software from the IT department is nothing short of a nightmare. This essentially means that you have to be content with the list of tools I listed above. The policy seems to be that all activity either managerial or development has to be carried out with the list of tools I mentioned above.
I was already cribbing at this point. This set of policies meant that I had to be content with IE6 which comes bundled with XP. No downloads meant no Firefox which in turn meant I would be deprived of my cherished feature of modern day browsing, tabs! How could they do such a thing to anyone? This amounts to cruelty in by book. It is just absurd. I would have settled for IE7 but even that is not available.
It is obviously not impossible to work only with these tools. It calls for some level of ingenuity and some patience. What I mean is that it is not impossible to make a GANTT chart or a block diagram in Excel but imagine coloring cells to show a time line, it is just tedious and error prone. Now, if it is a 12 Lakhs a year manager / engineer coloring the cells it becomes even more absurd. Wouldn't it be cheaper to give him a copy of Microsoft Project or a similar tool is something I kept asking myself. It would make life simpler when the chart is being made and when the chart is being modified and when the project needs to be tracked. Why put in a lengthy process to obtain the necessary tools which can substantially help improve efficiency especially at the managerial levels is beyond me.
Maybe it is my outlook which causes me to think this way. For example for me my computer is a natural extension of myself, my being. I know her (Sunshine) inside out. She is always has all the tools that i will possibly need. She is always updated and ready to go. Over the years I have learnt the hard way that you are only as efficient as you know your tools. I customize Sunshine to my whims and fancies and this definitely helps me work faster and produce results more effectively. Now at this firm there doesn't even seem to be a concept of one machine per employee. People are alloted and re-alloted machines randomly at a drop a hat. Forget tools and efficiency how does one manage data in such a transient environment. This is another one of those polices that makes no sense to me at all. Maybe there would be some order in the chaos if there were shares on some central server so that data remains at a common place while machines are being shifted but there seem to be no shares as well. Without shares the only legitimate way to move around data is mail and yes I am sure you guessed it by now, mailboxes have a 100MB quota. To complete the viscous circle you need to archive mail on your local hard disk! I have to wonder if these guys really know what they are doing!
The restrictions on the Internet are also stretched to a point which amounts to nothing less than paranoia. Apart from a blanket ban on binary downloads and popular email servers there is also a ban on searching pictures and maps because this activity is thought of as criminal or so says the firewall message. I wonder how the people working at this firm will use wikimapia to do something criminal considering the fact that at induction they have been through extensive background checks including a police verification.
That aside, not having the Internet for simple day to day development can have some seriously adverse effects. Just yesterday, I saw a case when this became a serious issue. These guys have a hardware lab which just got some fancy boards from TI running Linux and the plan was to get some basic tests done like booting up the board and mounting an NFS file system and so on. First some ground rules. The lab is isolated from all networks that means there is no Internet there. There is a single Linux box there with some archaic distribution of Suse and best of all USB and CDROMs are disabled on all machines. The first problem we hit upon was that there was no minicom. That was a easy problem to solve, we just got another laptop running Windows and used Hypeterminal. But then we discovered that the NFS server on the Linux box may be corrupt. Now how do we replace the defunct server. There seems to be no way of doing this and the whole activity is just stuck up for the last two days. This seems like a such a waste. Standing there I felt like I had time traveled to 2000 or something when I was in college and such lack of infrastructure was more common place.
There were more reasons why college memories came up. One more rule that i forgot to mention before is that the fancy board is not allowed outside the lab because it costs about 2000 dollars. In college this rule made sense. Undergrads playing with 2000 dollar boards is a little scary but 10 years on when I am paid twice as much a month to build something of similar complexity, I couldn't help but be amazed at the sheer oversight of the person who came up with such a policy.
The levels of ignorance among the less experienced engineers could be one of the reasons for this policy. The guys in the lab sat on the no minicom issue for two days before we were brought in to solve the problem. The manual said minicom and there was no minicon on the Suse box so the whole thing just stalled. Nobody even remotely thought of using Hyperterminal. I wouldn't trust a 2000 dollar board with these guys even inside the lab with supervision let alone the outside.
But my point is that blanket bans are counter productive in almost all cases. I could have solved these problems out in a couple of hours if I had the right resources with me. Some level of restriction is fine but when it reaches a level when work gets impeded so severely that deadlines are not met then the restrictions and the policies that enforce them need to be reviewed and modified. Scraped if necessary! One solution that comes to me is seniority based access to resources such as the internet and fancy boards instead of a blanket ban. An assumption that senior people will be more responsible and will also be more liable is not all that bad. Some training to everyone concerned wouldn't hurt either.
Again I guess the basic rule remains. It comes down to implementation of the policies on the floor. Any and every policy should be periodically reviewed to check if it is really working as it was designed. The only way is for the policy makers to taste their own medicine.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
Talent acquisition and deployment!
I volunteered my services as a consultant to one of the bigger IT firms in Pune beginning about a week ago. My main objective was to look at and learn how these companies operate on a day to day basis. The last week has been very interesting and taught me more of what I should not do and very little of what I should.
Going through the selection process of the company was a breeze. I spoke to an engineer on the phone and then had a one-on-one with a couple of more engineers and the group head of the team that I was to consult for. Nothing out of the ordinary there and nothing I haven't been doing for recruitment at ECM (that is Embedded Computing Machines, the company I co-founded). Once this was done, I was referred to a group called "Talent acquisition". When I walked through the door and read the name of the group, I was rather amused at the title, probably because I was expecting something more common like "Human Resources". I had a fairly productive talk with one of the members of the group and I was warming up to the idea of working here. But little did I know that things were all set to move south from here on.
I was expecting to hear from the Talent Acquisition group within a couple of days with an offer. The couple of days turned out to be a couple weeks with repeated pestering. In such a competitive market where the demand for engineers far exceeds supply and companies are beating each other silly in hiring people, this delay made very little or actually no sense at all. I am still wondering what made them take so long when you would expect that a company of this size and standing to have preset and tested processes which typically should have extremely small turn around times. Finally it looked like the engineering junta hammered their way through and I was invited to start work without an offer letter.
I drove down to their office at the appointed time and started by announcing my presence there. An hour went by and I was still waiting for someone to guide me through the initial formalities. I was predictably upset at this point. A young lady then came out to meet me and told me that my offer letter was still in pipeline and it would take another hour before she could start with me. What got to me was the tone in her voice and her demeanor, there was not even the slightest hint of regret or apology. On the other hand she gave me an impression of complete and absolute power, that somehow I was a slave to her whims and she owned me and my time.
A while later, a member from the engineering team came by and took me across what I later learnt was the "Deployment HR". The sheer apathy in that room overwhelmed me. I met a few more of the young lady's colleagues. Nobody had a clue to why i was there and what they had to do with me. It looked to me like there was no team, just a bunch of disjoint angry people in a room. Angry at what, I have no clue, their boss or simply the nature of their job. Surprisingly though the men were more courteous than the women. A few agonizingly curt comments later, I left my phone number with one of the men who promised he would find out what is to be done with me while I was introduced to the engineers. I did get a call in a couple of minutes and was told I should meet my "handler" (the same lady who thought she owned me).
On the way down, I stopped by and met my handler. She handed me a form which seemed to need a couple of personal details like my address and date of birth, which I filled up. Then to my utter amazement I was told that I need to get this form ratified by a whole bunch of people who were seated across the height of the building, right from reception to administration to the library. I did not know what to say, I was dumbstruck! It reminded me of the last day in college when I had to go to every department and get a NOC signed so that they could relieve me from college. I could not fathom the need for such a bizarre process, were they trying to prove some kind of point, were they trying to show me how big they were and that I was just a drop in the ocean. Whatever it was, it did not go down well with me, I think that the idea is downright ridiculous!
Fuming but tired, I did not resist, all I could think of was how do I get this over with and get the hell out of here. I took the form and went to the reception and was told that I needed to get other signatures first. Any amount of persuasion would not sway them. So giving up again, I went to the next department, to be told the same thing. Believe it or not every department I went to told me that the people were either busy or out to lunch or just unavailable. Twenty minutes later, I had given up completely. I have seen my share of bureaucracy and red tape over the years. There been times when I have got bills paid out of CDAC, but this one takes the cake. Completely frustrated and just plain angry having gotten into this mess in the first place, I left contemplating whether to return or not after wasting a good two and three quarter hours.
I am still appalled at the attitude with which employees are inducted. The "Deployment HR" as they call it is the first point of contact for a new employee with the company. I don't think it is all that wrong to expect some basic courtesy and understanding from these guys. I would go one step further and say that this junta should be trained to make day one of people joining an organization hassle free and pleasant. At least theoretically it looks a situation where both employee and organization would benefit.
Another important lesson was that, all policy makers should monitor periodically how the policies they make are being implemented on the floor. Couple of years ago there was a series on BBC where CEOs were made to spend a day out on the floor to see the pitfalls of working in their organizations. I remember one episode where Nandan Nilaikani was asked to join Infosys as a new employee. By the end of the program he was as hassled as I was. Most policies, I am sure are made with good intentions but what really matters is the way in which these policies are implemented. Probably the "get the paper signed" policy was brought in to acquaint new employees to the location of the various departments and the people that man it, which would be a good thing for the employee in future interactions. But the way it is implemented has deteriorated to such an extent, that it has now become a chore and any good that the policy was meant to do is completely lost.
I did go back the next day and when I look beyond the initial disappointments and the anger, I see that this experience was actually fruitful. I have learnt valuable lessons which will stay with me for some time to come. Of course this is not the end of the journey. There is much more to see and much more to learn and find myself looking forward to it.
Going through the selection process of the company was a breeze. I spoke to an engineer on the phone and then had a one-on-one with a couple of more engineers and the group head of the team that I was to consult for. Nothing out of the ordinary there and nothing I haven't been doing for recruitment at ECM (that is Embedded Computing Machines, the company I co-founded). Once this was done, I was referred to a group called "Talent acquisition". When I walked through the door and read the name of the group, I was rather amused at the title, probably because I was expecting something more common like "Human Resources". I had a fairly productive talk with one of the members of the group and I was warming up to the idea of working here. But little did I know that things were all set to move south from here on.
I was expecting to hear from the Talent Acquisition group within a couple of days with an offer. The couple of days turned out to be a couple weeks with repeated pestering. In such a competitive market where the demand for engineers far exceeds supply and companies are beating each other silly in hiring people, this delay made very little or actually no sense at all. I am still wondering what made them take so long when you would expect that a company of this size and standing to have preset and tested processes which typically should have extremely small turn around times. Finally it looked like the engineering junta hammered their way through and I was invited to start work without an offer letter.
I drove down to their office at the appointed time and started by announcing my presence there. An hour went by and I was still waiting for someone to guide me through the initial formalities. I was predictably upset at this point. A young lady then came out to meet me and told me that my offer letter was still in pipeline and it would take another hour before she could start with me. What got to me was the tone in her voice and her demeanor, there was not even the slightest hint of regret or apology. On the other hand she gave me an impression of complete and absolute power, that somehow I was a slave to her whims and she owned me and my time.
A while later, a member from the engineering team came by and took me across what I later learnt was the "Deployment HR". The sheer apathy in that room overwhelmed me. I met a few more of the young lady's colleagues. Nobody had a clue to why i was there and what they had to do with me. It looked to me like there was no team, just a bunch of disjoint angry people in a room. Angry at what, I have no clue, their boss or simply the nature of their job. Surprisingly though the men were more courteous than the women. A few agonizingly curt comments later, I left my phone number with one of the men who promised he would find out what is to be done with me while I was introduced to the engineers. I did get a call in a couple of minutes and was told I should meet my "handler" (the same lady who thought she owned me).
On the way down, I stopped by and met my handler. She handed me a form which seemed to need a couple of personal details like my address and date of birth, which I filled up. Then to my utter amazement I was told that I need to get this form ratified by a whole bunch of people who were seated across the height of the building, right from reception to administration to the library. I did not know what to say, I was dumbstruck! It reminded me of the last day in college when I had to go to every department and get a NOC signed so that they could relieve me from college. I could not fathom the need for such a bizarre process, were they trying to prove some kind of point, were they trying to show me how big they were and that I was just a drop in the ocean. Whatever it was, it did not go down well with me, I think that the idea is downright ridiculous!
Fuming but tired, I did not resist, all I could think of was how do I get this over with and get the hell out of here. I took the form and went to the reception and was told that I needed to get other signatures first. Any amount of persuasion would not sway them. So giving up again, I went to the next department, to be told the same thing. Believe it or not every department I went to told me that the people were either busy or out to lunch or just unavailable. Twenty minutes later, I had given up completely. I have seen my share of bureaucracy and red tape over the years. There been times when I have got bills paid out of CDAC, but this one takes the cake. Completely frustrated and just plain angry having gotten into this mess in the first place, I left contemplating whether to return or not after wasting a good two and three quarter hours.
I am still appalled at the attitude with which employees are inducted. The "Deployment HR" as they call it is the first point of contact for a new employee with the company. I don't think it is all that wrong to expect some basic courtesy and understanding from these guys. I would go one step further and say that this junta should be trained to make day one of people joining an organization hassle free and pleasant. At least theoretically it looks a situation where both employee and organization would benefit.
Another important lesson was that, all policy makers should monitor periodically how the policies they make are being implemented on the floor. Couple of years ago there was a series on BBC where CEOs were made to spend a day out on the floor to see the pitfalls of working in their organizations. I remember one episode where Nandan Nilaikani was asked to join Infosys as a new employee. By the end of the program he was as hassled as I was. Most policies, I am sure are made with good intentions but what really matters is the way in which these policies are implemented. Probably the "get the paper signed" policy was brought in to acquaint new employees to the location of the various departments and the people that man it, which would be a good thing for the employee in future interactions. But the way it is implemented has deteriorated to such an extent, that it has now become a chore and any good that the policy was meant to do is completely lost.
I did go back the next day and when I look beyond the initial disappointments and the anger, I see that this experience was actually fruitful. I have learnt valuable lessons which will stay with me for some time to come. Of course this is not the end of the journey. There is much more to see and much more to learn and find myself looking forward to it.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
As above, so below!
For the first time this week, I had a look at my horoscope. I actually did not even know I had one. I was a little intimidated and at the same time intrigued by what that piece of paper and those markings are supposed to represent. If people are to be believed this was a window to my past, present and future. Somehow that is a tad bit difficult to get down my throat.
Astrology actually comes from Greek, ἄστρον (astron), "star", and λόγος (logos), "theory", "study": lit. study of the stars. The idea being that the position of celestial objects has something to do with personalities, human affairs and terrestrial events. So studying the relative position of these bodies can help us understand, interpret and somehow predict the future. Most of the time I am amazed at the complexity around me. The human mind is exceeding complex and the universe is worse. As human kind we have trouble predicting the weather tomorrow, or how the stock market, which is our own creation, will behave in the next trading session. When an astrologer says that he can predict how my life will pan out, it seems ludicrous.
Look up at the sky sometime when the power is out and what you will see is simply a huge collection of random dots. So its easy to imagine something like this, one warm moonless night, a long time ago, a little girl looks up to her dad with longing eyes and says "Papa, drawing karni hai". Poor dad is all out of stuff to paint with but you know how dads are with their little bundles of joy and voila, any idea! Out come father and daughter into the open and our little girl exclaims with infinite joy, "Wow itne saare dots". Couple of nights later we have our constellations! Quite possible, isn't it? I just wish though dad and daughter were a little more imaginative as the Airtel ad managers and they came up with cute little dolphins instead of the scorpions and lions. But I guess you have to forgive them, after all they did not have the internet!
The point is if it is connecting the dots then a millions pictures can be painted. So we have a set of two complex systems, people and the stars. You start drawing bridges between them and you are bound to hit upon some, there is no doubt about that. But more often than not you will end up with no correlations at all. What would really interest me is the ratio of right predictions to the wrong predictions. I wonder if such a number exists but science and astrology are not very friendly, the probability of that number existing is low. That being the case, there is really no known evidence binding the stars and terrestrial events. There is no consensus among astrologers themselves as to whether the position of stars is a merely pointers/markers to events or if the celestial bodies actually influence life on the earth. You would think after 5000 years they would have at least figured that out.
A couple of days ago, I happened to see a movie called Maqbool which is an interpretation of Macbeth. This movie illustrated the classic problem with astology. If somebody tells you something is going to happen in the future, you are already biased whether you like it or not and there is no way to wipe out that bias. A wise man once told me "it is difficult to be a spy in another country, not because you cannot learn a new culture but because it is impossible to forget your own". With no empirical evidence to support it, the basis of astrology as a discipline in the modern era is shaky at best. So the question to be asked is with my inability to unlearn should I subject myself to the predictions of an astrologer or am I better of without him?
In September of the year 2000, the Supreme Court issued a notice to the Ministry of Human Resource Development stating that the introduction of astrology to university curricula is "a giant leap backwards, undermining whatever scientific credibility the country has achieved so far". I guess that answers my question pretty comprehensively!
Astrology actually comes from Greek, ἄστρον (astron), "star", and λόγος (logos), "theory", "study": lit. study of the stars. The idea being that the position of celestial objects has something to do with personalities, human affairs and terrestrial events. So studying the relative position of these bodies can help us understand, interpret and somehow predict the future. Most of the time I am amazed at the complexity around me. The human mind is exceeding complex and the universe is worse. As human kind we have trouble predicting the weather tomorrow, or how the stock market, which is our own creation, will behave in the next trading session. When an astrologer says that he can predict how my life will pan out, it seems ludicrous.
Look up at the sky sometime when the power is out and what you will see is simply a huge collection of random dots. So its easy to imagine something like this, one warm moonless night, a long time ago, a little girl looks up to her dad with longing eyes and says "Papa, drawing karni hai". Poor dad is all out of stuff to paint with but you know how dads are with their little bundles of joy and voila, any idea! Out come father and daughter into the open and our little girl exclaims with infinite joy, "Wow itne saare dots". Couple of nights later we have our constellations! Quite possible, isn't it? I just wish though dad and daughter were a little more imaginative as the Airtel ad managers and they came up with cute little dolphins instead of the scorpions and lions. But I guess you have to forgive them, after all they did not have the internet!
The point is if it is connecting the dots then a millions pictures can be painted. So we have a set of two complex systems, people and the stars. You start drawing bridges between them and you are bound to hit upon some, there is no doubt about that. But more often than not you will end up with no correlations at all. What would really interest me is the ratio of right predictions to the wrong predictions. I wonder if such a number exists but science and astrology are not very friendly, the probability of that number existing is low. That being the case, there is really no known evidence binding the stars and terrestrial events. There is no consensus among astrologers themselves as to whether the position of stars is a merely pointers/markers to events or if the celestial bodies actually influence life on the earth. You would think after 5000 years they would have at least figured that out.
A couple of days ago, I happened to see a movie called Maqbool which is an interpretation of Macbeth. This movie illustrated the classic problem with astology. If somebody tells you something is going to happen in the future, you are already biased whether you like it or not and there is no way to wipe out that bias. A wise man once told me "it is difficult to be a spy in another country, not because you cannot learn a new culture but because it is impossible to forget your own". With no empirical evidence to support it, the basis of astrology as a discipline in the modern era is shaky at best. So the question to be asked is with my inability to unlearn should I subject myself to the predictions of an astrologer or am I better of without him?
In September of the year 2000, the Supreme Court issued a notice to the Ministry of Human Resource Development stating that the introduction of astrology to university curricula is "a giant leap backwards, undermining whatever scientific credibility the country has achieved so far". I guess that answers my question pretty comprehensively!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
A crisis of identity!
Since I have been talking so much about God, the next obvious increment would be religion. There are two things that happened in the last couple of weeks that got me thinking in a all together different directions about religion. One was obviously the discussion about my previous blog with Tanno where he said that he was a Muslim and his view of the world is based on the Quran. The second one was a shrine that Rahul created in the conference room at the ECM office.
I guess I have hinted on my position on religion in previous posts. I was born into a religion but i don't practice it. So far I don't believe religion has helped me with anything whatsoever, neither spiritually, emotionally nor socially. It has been used to discriminate against me right from the time i needed to go to school. I am not especially proud of being a Hindu. You can argue that I really don't know much about Hinduism or what it represents and you won't be wrong, I don't know much. Probably I am not happy with the way it is represented today and the I am not happy with the people who claim to be the leaders of the religion.
I am tired of the fundamentalism and the intolerance that all religion has come to represent in the so called modern world. It has become a tool to acquire power and status. Bombay has become Mumbai and Madras has become Chennai but the legacy of divide and rule doesn't seem to be going away anywhere soon. People can be divided along a lot of lines but religion seems to be the most potent. As I have discovered religion can be a very touchy subject and I am slowly discovering the meaning of "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes", though definitely not in a communist way.
I am not opposed to the idea of religion per se but I definitely have deep reservations of the way it is being practiced and I have become so cynical about the concept that there is this tremendous inertia to learn about it. I think that religion should be a personal affair and I really don't think it should be overtly advertised. Most people, I have come to realize, don't even have the slightest notion of the religion they practice and I really have no qualms in saying that this is true even in my house. I have asked many a times for the significance of particular ritual or a verse and I have never got a straight answer for any question. It all seems to be second hand knowledge and religion seems to be practiced without understanding or questioning.
I have started reading the Quaran and even though it is a very difficult to read I am still sticking to it. As I read I am learning more and I am quite intrigued by the idea of religion in general and why it came about. I hope to read the rigveda and the Bible next. The idea definitely is to find out with an open mind when and how these religious texts came into being, why they are revered so much and why people follow it blindly, millennia after they have been written.
As it stands today though, I don't believe that I need religion to provide me with an identity in society. I would rather not be part of or be associated with a religious group or sect. I don't want to announce to the world or to the government my religious preferences. I would rather be nonreligious, if that is at all possible.
That said I cannot ignore the deeply communal society we live in. The majority of the people around me are attached and are more often than not proud of their religious identities. Their sensibilities are hurt and sometimes deeply wounded by the tiniest of pin drops. Everyday morning when I walk to my room in the office, I pass the shrine in the conference room and I have to ask myself in a land where even Ayappa and Venkateshwara have not learnt to coexist, is this not an invitation to trouble? Why give the company a religious identity? What purpose does it serve? Is this not talking a side? Is this not communalizing the fabric of the work place with such an "in your face" location for the shrine? Doesn't the location amplify the message unreasonably? The question really is should we as a business establishment be making such a statement when it can so easily be perceived as intolerant? I would think not!
I guess I have hinted on my position on religion in previous posts. I was born into a religion but i don't practice it. So far I don't believe religion has helped me with anything whatsoever, neither spiritually, emotionally nor socially. It has been used to discriminate against me right from the time i needed to go to school. I am not especially proud of being a Hindu. You can argue that I really don't know much about Hinduism or what it represents and you won't be wrong, I don't know much. Probably I am not happy with the way it is represented today and the I am not happy with the people who claim to be the leaders of the religion.
I am tired of the fundamentalism and the intolerance that all religion has come to represent in the so called modern world. It has become a tool to acquire power and status. Bombay has become Mumbai and Madras has become Chennai but the legacy of divide and rule doesn't seem to be going away anywhere soon. People can be divided along a lot of lines but religion seems to be the most potent. As I have discovered religion can be a very touchy subject and I am slowly discovering the meaning of "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes", though definitely not in a communist way.
I am not opposed to the idea of religion per se but I definitely have deep reservations of the way it is being practiced and I have become so cynical about the concept that there is this tremendous inertia to learn about it. I think that religion should be a personal affair and I really don't think it should be overtly advertised. Most people, I have come to realize, don't even have the slightest notion of the religion they practice and I really have no qualms in saying that this is true even in my house. I have asked many a times for the significance of particular ritual or a verse and I have never got a straight answer for any question. It all seems to be second hand knowledge and religion seems to be practiced without understanding or questioning.
I have started reading the Quaran and even though it is a very difficult to read I am still sticking to it. As I read I am learning more and I am quite intrigued by the idea of religion in general and why it came about. I hope to read the rigveda and the Bible next. The idea definitely is to find out with an open mind when and how these religious texts came into being, why they are revered so much and why people follow it blindly, millennia after they have been written.
As it stands today though, I don't believe that I need religion to provide me with an identity in society. I would rather not be part of or be associated with a religious group or sect. I don't want to announce to the world or to the government my religious preferences. I would rather be nonreligious, if that is at all possible.
That said I cannot ignore the deeply communal society we live in. The majority of the people around me are attached and are more often than not proud of their religious identities. Their sensibilities are hurt and sometimes deeply wounded by the tiniest of pin drops. Everyday morning when I walk to my room in the office, I pass the shrine in the conference room and I have to ask myself in a land where even Ayappa and Venkateshwara have not learnt to coexist, is this not an invitation to trouble? Why give the company a religious identity? What purpose does it serve? Is this not talking a side? Is this not communalizing the fabric of the work place with such an "in your face" location for the shrine? Doesn't the location amplify the message unreasonably? The question really is should we as a business establishment be making such a statement when it can so easily be perceived as intolerant? I would think not!
Friday, February 15, 2008
At Peace!
I started reading a book on neurobiology recently and the author has written a few lines in the introduction which summarizes very nicely my view of the discussion on the previous post I made. I quote:
"I am skeptical of science's presumption of objectivity and definitiveness. I have a difficult time seeing scientific results, especially in neurobiology, as anything but provisional approximations, to be enjoyed for a while and discarded as soon as better accounts become available. But skepticism about the current reach of science, especially as it concerns the mind, does not imply diminished enthusiasm for the attempt to improve the provisional approximations.
Perhaps the complexity of the human mind is such that the solution to the problem can never be known because of our inherent limitations. Perhaps we should not even talk about a problem, at all, and speak instead of a mystery, drawing on a distinction between questions that can be approached suitably by science and questions that are likely to elude science forever. But much as I have sympathy for those who cannot imagine how we might unravel the mystery (they have been dubbed "mysterians"), and those who think it is knowable but would be disappointed if the explanation were to rely on something already known, I do believe more often than not, that we will come to know."
What he says about the human mind can be equated to nature which is far more complex than the human mind it created. I don't believe that any literary work today can even come close to defining what nature is and how it works, let alone being a definitive guide. I have been here only for 28 measly years, I cannot be at peace with anything. The day i say that, I have closed my mind to new "approximations". I don't want to be at peace and hope to be this way for the entire time I am here. I want to learn and I want to explore. There is just so much out there that I need to know before I can say a piece of knowledge is useless.
"I am skeptical of science's presumption of objectivity and definitiveness. I have a difficult time seeing scientific results, especially in neurobiology, as anything but provisional approximations, to be enjoyed for a while and discarded as soon as better accounts become available. But skepticism about the current reach of science, especially as it concerns the mind, does not imply diminished enthusiasm for the attempt to improve the provisional approximations.
Perhaps the complexity of the human mind is such that the solution to the problem can never be known because of our inherent limitations. Perhaps we should not even talk about a problem, at all, and speak instead of a mystery, drawing on a distinction between questions that can be approached suitably by science and questions that are likely to elude science forever. But much as I have sympathy for those who cannot imagine how we might unravel the mystery (they have been dubbed "mysterians"), and those who think it is knowable but would be disappointed if the explanation were to rely on something already known, I do believe more often than not, that we will come to know."
What he says about the human mind can be equated to nature which is far more complex than the human mind it created. I don't believe that any literary work today can even come close to defining what nature is and how it works, let alone being a definitive guide. I have been here only for 28 measly years, I cannot be at peace with anything. The day i say that, I have closed my mind to new "approximations". I don't want to be at peace and hope to be this way for the entire time I am here. I want to learn and I want to explore. There is just so much out there that I need to know before I can say a piece of knowledge is useless.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Heaven holds a place for those who pray?
So say Simon and Garfunkel. I love the song but then I don't necessarily agree with them. As we grow up, we give up St. Nick, the tooth fairy and the closet monster but why is it so difficult to give up the concept of heaven and hell? Aren't they all in the same league? Aren't they all fairy tales, we were taught as children?
I have not come to terms with the concept of praying as well. I find temples awkward places to be at. I have never been able to understand most of the rituals there, they seem frivolous to me and i somehow can't get myself to do them. The base problem though is that the concept of God in general, does not appeal to me. I think that God was created by early man to attribute things that he did not understand and the concept has just stuck around for too long.
Think about it originally man did not know about the sun and the moon so they became Gods. Then the planets, then earth, fire, wind and water. As our understanding progresses we don't hold these things in awe and how many people today really think of the sun as a God. In a way, as human knowledge increases, it kills a little part of God. Even today, we attribute things which are beyond our control or things we don't understand to God. Take creation of the universe as an example. We have conflicting theories, the big bang being the most popular but no real consensus. The simplest explanation that remains is that God created the universe.
People pray for and do penance for things that they expect or want in the future. Our lives are complex and modeling our lives is probably impossible. The sheer number of variables controlling our lives and situations that make out lives are so many that it is impossible to predict an outcome for the situations or our lives. But the other side is that if you get your way it is easy to attribute it to something or anything because it is difficult to prove what had and what did not have a tilting influence on some outcome. So it could be God who put in his 2c to get you what you want or it could be the planets exerting their influence.
That said I personally would like to believe that it is my effort that most influenced the outcome of any situation. I don't like sharing my glory with God or the planets. Why should I? I have worked hard for what i earned. Similarly if something doesn't go my way then it is probably because I left some stone unturned or I made a mistake or I was being plain stupid. I think I am strong enough to accept that and deal with that. I don't need a safety net in terms of God or the planets to blame. I really cannot get myself to believe that asking a stone idol or an unknown "creator" for help in changing the future or influencing outcomes of situations is a worthwhile effort.
I don't buy the argument that I was created by an intelligent creator. To me there is no watchmaker, blind or otherwise. The basis of the watchmaker analogy is that all complex things like a watch are created by intelligent design and cannot occur randomly or by chance. Another argument is that of purposeful design, that is the designer makes things to solve a certain purpose. For example the hands of a clock require to be moved so there is a spring to hold power, similarly humans have eyes to take in the environment around them or limbs to move around. I do own a copy of the Origin of the Species and even though it is a seriously boring book, I have read through most of it. I think Darwin wins hands down and he convincingly disproves all these arguments.
Mutation and natural selection explain biological creation and why we are as we are with our eyes and limbs. Similarly it also provides a plausible explanation of how complex things and life itself can evolve and need not be created by an intelligent designer. There is empirical evidence to back this up all around us and the evidence and the argument just gets stronger everyday. For me the creation vs. evolution debate has a clear and unambiguous winner. Moreover, if an intelligent designer created me then he must be more complex than I, who created him? Is it not a circular problem?
I don't have a problem with people believing in the presence of a creator, everybody is entitled to their own view. Moreover the concept of God has a multi-billion dollar industry around it. The Tirupathi temple has a budget running into a few hundred crores. The industry does provide employment to millions and does have its philanthropic benefits. The problem I have is that this industry is based on fear and fear can be used to exploit people. How many times have you heard people say if they don't shell out cash, God will make bad things happen to them. The second problem is ignorance and blind faith. How many people you know who argue about the existence of God have actually any idea about the concept of evolution or have a open mind to even read about it. This is what troubles me the most.
In essence what i would like to do is chip away at God and eliminate the unknowns rather than pray. That should get a place in the books which is better than a place in heaven. I am happy being an atheist but for the non-believers, God bless you and Mrs. Robinson.
I have not come to terms with the concept of praying as well. I find temples awkward places to be at. I have never been able to understand most of the rituals there, they seem frivolous to me and i somehow can't get myself to do them. The base problem though is that the concept of God in general, does not appeal to me. I think that God was created by early man to attribute things that he did not understand and the concept has just stuck around for too long.
Think about it originally man did not know about the sun and the moon so they became Gods. Then the planets, then earth, fire, wind and water. As our understanding progresses we don't hold these things in awe and how many people today really think of the sun as a God. In a way, as human knowledge increases, it kills a little part of God. Even today, we attribute things which are beyond our control or things we don't understand to God. Take creation of the universe as an example. We have conflicting theories, the big bang being the most popular but no real consensus. The simplest explanation that remains is that God created the universe.
People pray for and do penance for things that they expect or want in the future. Our lives are complex and modeling our lives is probably impossible. The sheer number of variables controlling our lives and situations that make out lives are so many that it is impossible to predict an outcome for the situations or our lives. But the other side is that if you get your way it is easy to attribute it to something or anything because it is difficult to prove what had and what did not have a tilting influence on some outcome. So it could be God who put in his 2c to get you what you want or it could be the planets exerting their influence.
That said I personally would like to believe that it is my effort that most influenced the outcome of any situation. I don't like sharing my glory with God or the planets. Why should I? I have worked hard for what i earned. Similarly if something doesn't go my way then it is probably because I left some stone unturned or I made a mistake or I was being plain stupid. I think I am strong enough to accept that and deal with that. I don't need a safety net in terms of God or the planets to blame. I really cannot get myself to believe that asking a stone idol or an unknown "creator" for help in changing the future or influencing outcomes of situations is a worthwhile effort.
I don't buy the argument that I was created by an intelligent creator. To me there is no watchmaker, blind or otherwise. The basis of the watchmaker analogy is that all complex things like a watch are created by intelligent design and cannot occur randomly or by chance. Another argument is that of purposeful design, that is the designer makes things to solve a certain purpose. For example the hands of a clock require to be moved so there is a spring to hold power, similarly humans have eyes to take in the environment around them or limbs to move around. I do own a copy of the Origin of the Species and even though it is a seriously boring book, I have read through most of it. I think Darwin wins hands down and he convincingly disproves all these arguments.
Mutation and natural selection explain biological creation and why we are as we are with our eyes and limbs. Similarly it also provides a plausible explanation of how complex things and life itself can evolve and need not be created by an intelligent designer. There is empirical evidence to back this up all around us and the evidence and the argument just gets stronger everyday. For me the creation vs. evolution debate has a clear and unambiguous winner. Moreover, if an intelligent designer created me then he must be more complex than I, who created him? Is it not a circular problem?
I don't have a problem with people believing in the presence of a creator, everybody is entitled to their own view. Moreover the concept of God has a multi-billion dollar industry around it. The Tirupathi temple has a budget running into a few hundred crores. The industry does provide employment to millions and does have its philanthropic benefits. The problem I have is that this industry is based on fear and fear can be used to exploit people. How many times have you heard people say if they don't shell out cash, God will make bad things happen to them. The second problem is ignorance and blind faith. How many people you know who argue about the existence of God have actually any idea about the concept of evolution or have a open mind to even read about it. This is what troubles me the most.
In essence what i would like to do is chip away at God and eliminate the unknowns rather than pray. That should get a place in the books which is better than a place in heaven. I am happy being an atheist but for the non-believers, God bless you and Mrs. Robinson.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Growing up!
With so many of my friends on the cusp of becoming parents, I cannot help but reflect on how difficult parenting actually is. A child is a living, breathing thing a complex entity. Complex entities have a tendency to be chaotic and unpredictable. How do you deal with this chaos and how do you react and handle difficult situations and how do you work when so much emotion is clouding every small morsel of judgment you might have? It all sounds very daunting.
I believe the key like with any other relationship is communication. Without communication, I have seen parents and children drift so apart that they almost look like strangers who just live together. Communication is a two-way street and both parties have to be equally involved to make things work, but i believe very strongly that the onus of setting up the environment for conducive and productive communications lies squarely with the parents. Thats because this has to be done early in the child's life.
Most of the time this becomes impossible because parents tend to think of their children as things they own and control completely. "My son will do what i ask him without questioning", seems to be a statement which makes most parents overzealous with pride. You have to wonder if that is a seriously degrading comment on your child's intelligence or your assertion of total control over your children. This kind of almost dictatorial control can be achieved only through fear. Instilling fear in your children when they are young I assume is not very difficult. A good spanking or some serious emotional blackmailing will put the fear of God into any child. But fear brings with it one major drawback, it severs all channels of communication. There are only two things the child can do, either he is going to be this timid docile creature and treat every word you say as a command of God or he is simply going to rebel and do everything behind your back. What he chooses totally depends on the environment presented to him outside the house. Either which way if you set up a precedent of fear for your children, and your child even for a moment thinks he is scared of you, then the game is most definitely over. At that instance when he thought that, you have lost your children forever and they are not coming back.
You may not be a tyrannical parent but you could still decide that you would not talk to your children about specific so called taboo topics and just assume that your children have some how magically figured out the right thing to do. The most classic example of this is booze. Ask a parent, "does your son drink" and i will bet that most of the time you will hear "Absolutely not!". Complete and total denial. I am sure all of us have wondered at some time or another on such a comment, are our parents really so naive? I mean they ought to know at some point or another you did get pressured, bullied or plain tempted to pick up that glass of vodka and gulp it down.
I know that booze is there in the world and it can be bought easily. Sweeping it under the carpet is the most irresponsible thing ever. Booze can get my children into trouble. I would rather know where and when they are drinking rather than they drinking on the sly and debating whether or not they should call me if they end up in trouble. Denial does not seem to be the right answer, not at all. The answer definitely lies in education and communication, in an environment where there is not a blanket ban on alcohol but rather an advisory on its ill effects and how to manage it correctly. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying drinking should be encouraged in any way but a logical and clear discussion on alcohol with your children is not going to make them an alcoholic on the contrary, I believe that a rebellious child drinking behind your back is more likely to become one.
I enjoy my glass of wine and I have never had to make an excuse for it at home. I have a collection of spirits from all over the world and I am actually proud of it and it sits in a closet in my room. I can order a Mojito for myself, a glass of wine for my sister and a beer for my dad at a restaurant on a Sunday afternoon and not worry too much about it. I do think that this is a far better place to be in than sneaking out with friends and drinking irrationally with the fear of getting caught always hanging on your head. There is a mutual trust that has built up where my dad is confident of my ability to drink responsibly and I make sure that I don't shake that confidence in any way. I know that if I break it I will be the bigger loser, that itself is deterrent enough to make me say no after my third drink. Isn't this a far healthier relationship where things are in the open and people are generally sleeping better than a one based on lies and denial? Cheers dad!
Fear and denial are age old problems that parents seem to dealing with all the time but then the environment in which children live changes with every passing generation. What do you do with problems whose consequences are not known. The most glaring of these problems at least for our generation and the coming one seems to be with mobile phones and the Internet. Every teenager today is bought a mobile phone. In general, looking at a very global picture mobile phones make personal communication easy and effortless. But if you observe how your 16 year old cousin uses her phone even you will be surprised, let alone her parents. Try explaining to your mother how you can effectively fight with your girlfriend from the middle of crowded wedding reception with 160-byte snippets. The conversation will probably end when you say girlfriend but you get the idea of what i am trying to say. Or better still try explaining to your aunt the perils of putting a computer with a broadband connection in the same cousins bedroom. Both are seriously uphill tasks!
These are just genuine mistakes or simply unknowns which can end up causing a lot of issues at some point or another. So, what do you do as a parent? Do you not buy your children mobile phones or do you not get them an internet connections? For all its worth, these things expose your child to whole new world, a whole new sub-culture. Do you curtail this exposure or do you start spying on your children and start reading their mails and putting up key loggers on the PC? I don't think that either of them is a good option. I think the only solution is to be on your toes and make informed decisions and learn to deal with, understand and accept situations as they evolve. By accept, I mean that if your kid needs to use steganography to send out messages then there is something terribly wrong already even before the computer came in. I am sure the word invest i used in my last post is suddenly starting to make sense! It is a lot of difficult, hard work.
But i think, all this aside the most difficult aspect of parenting is learning to let go of your children. As your children grow and acquire knowledge and intelligence for themselves, your influence and control on their thinking reduces or at least it should reduce. Most parents find this concept very daunting and they would like their children to be in their sphere of influence for eternity. The idea seems to be that they can somehow protect their children from all pitfalls for time immemorial, which practically is not achievable. In my opinion, parents who accept this idea gracefully are the ones who make the difference and make life easier and productive for themselves and their children. Somewhere down the line you have to learn to stop saying "I know what is best for my child" and say "He knows what is best for himself" instead. That later statement is obviously difficult to make and it requires a lot of trust and respect both ways, though I am sure it is said with immense pride because for reasons more than one, it is vindication of your "work" as a good parent.
As, I look around me, I actually feel lucky to be where I am. I have had an exceptional childhood. I have never been denied anything, I have not been subjected to an environment of fear, I have had my independence and privacy, I have been able to do and achieve what I have aimed and wished for, not what was expected of me, my opinions are sought for and are respected and I don't have very many complaints. I am not saying that it has all been perfect and my parents have made no mistakes but overall considering how complex this whole game is and how difficult children can be, if I reach some point which is even half way to where my parents are today, I would consider it a job well done!
I believe the key like with any other relationship is communication. Without communication, I have seen parents and children drift so apart that they almost look like strangers who just live together. Communication is a two-way street and both parties have to be equally involved to make things work, but i believe very strongly that the onus of setting up the environment for conducive and productive communications lies squarely with the parents. Thats because this has to be done early in the child's life.
Most of the time this becomes impossible because parents tend to think of their children as things they own and control completely. "My son will do what i ask him without questioning", seems to be a statement which makes most parents overzealous with pride. You have to wonder if that is a seriously degrading comment on your child's intelligence or your assertion of total control over your children. This kind of almost dictatorial control can be achieved only through fear. Instilling fear in your children when they are young I assume is not very difficult. A good spanking or some serious emotional blackmailing will put the fear of God into any child. But fear brings with it one major drawback, it severs all channels of communication. There are only two things the child can do, either he is going to be this timid docile creature and treat every word you say as a command of God or he is simply going to rebel and do everything behind your back. What he chooses totally depends on the environment presented to him outside the house. Either which way if you set up a precedent of fear for your children, and your child even for a moment thinks he is scared of you, then the game is most definitely over. At that instance when he thought that, you have lost your children forever and they are not coming back.
You may not be a tyrannical parent but you could still decide that you would not talk to your children about specific so called taboo topics and just assume that your children have some how magically figured out the right thing to do. The most classic example of this is booze. Ask a parent, "does your son drink" and i will bet that most of the time you will hear "Absolutely not!". Complete and total denial. I am sure all of us have wondered at some time or another on such a comment, are our parents really so naive? I mean they ought to know at some point or another you did get pressured, bullied or plain tempted to pick up that glass of vodka and gulp it down.
I know that booze is there in the world and it can be bought easily. Sweeping it under the carpet is the most irresponsible thing ever. Booze can get my children into trouble. I would rather know where and when they are drinking rather than they drinking on the sly and debating whether or not they should call me if they end up in trouble. Denial does not seem to be the right answer, not at all. The answer definitely lies in education and communication, in an environment where there is not a blanket ban on alcohol but rather an advisory on its ill effects and how to manage it correctly. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying drinking should be encouraged in any way but a logical and clear discussion on alcohol with your children is not going to make them an alcoholic on the contrary, I believe that a rebellious child drinking behind your back is more likely to become one.
I enjoy my glass of wine and I have never had to make an excuse for it at home. I have a collection of spirits from all over the world and I am actually proud of it and it sits in a closet in my room. I can order a Mojito for myself, a glass of wine for my sister and a beer for my dad at a restaurant on a Sunday afternoon and not worry too much about it. I do think that this is a far better place to be in than sneaking out with friends and drinking irrationally with the fear of getting caught always hanging on your head. There is a mutual trust that has built up where my dad is confident of my ability to drink responsibly and I make sure that I don't shake that confidence in any way. I know that if I break it I will be the bigger loser, that itself is deterrent enough to make me say no after my third drink. Isn't this a far healthier relationship where things are in the open and people are generally sleeping better than a one based on lies and denial? Cheers dad!
Fear and denial are age old problems that parents seem to dealing with all the time but then the environment in which children live changes with every passing generation. What do you do with problems whose consequences are not known. The most glaring of these problems at least for our generation and the coming one seems to be with mobile phones and the Internet. Every teenager today is bought a mobile phone. In general, looking at a very global picture mobile phones make personal communication easy and effortless. But if you observe how your 16 year old cousin uses her phone even you will be surprised, let alone her parents. Try explaining to your mother how you can effectively fight with your girlfriend from the middle of crowded wedding reception with 160-byte snippets. The conversation will probably end when you say girlfriend but you get the idea of what i am trying to say. Or better still try explaining to your aunt the perils of putting a computer with a broadband connection in the same cousins bedroom. Both are seriously uphill tasks!
These are just genuine mistakes or simply unknowns which can end up causing a lot of issues at some point or another. So, what do you do as a parent? Do you not buy your children mobile phones or do you not get them an internet connections? For all its worth, these things expose your child to whole new world, a whole new sub-culture. Do you curtail this exposure or do you start spying on your children and start reading their mails and putting up key loggers on the PC? I don't think that either of them is a good option. I think the only solution is to be on your toes and make informed decisions and learn to deal with, understand and accept situations as they evolve. By accept, I mean that if your kid needs to use steganography to send out messages then there is something terribly wrong already even before the computer came in. I am sure the word invest i used in my last post is suddenly starting to make sense! It is a lot of difficult, hard work.
But i think, all this aside the most difficult aspect of parenting is learning to let go of your children. As your children grow and acquire knowledge and intelligence for themselves, your influence and control on their thinking reduces or at least it should reduce. Most parents find this concept very daunting and they would like their children to be in their sphere of influence for eternity. The idea seems to be that they can somehow protect their children from all pitfalls for time immemorial, which practically is not achievable. In my opinion, parents who accept this idea gracefully are the ones who make the difference and make life easier and productive for themselves and their children. Somewhere down the line you have to learn to stop saying "I know what is best for my child" and say "He knows what is best for himself" instead. That later statement is obviously difficult to make and it requires a lot of trust and respect both ways, though I am sure it is said with immense pride because for reasons more than one, it is vindication of your "work" as a good parent.
As, I look around me, I actually feel lucky to be where I am. I have had an exceptional childhood. I have never been denied anything, I have not been subjected to an environment of fear, I have had my independence and privacy, I have been able to do and achieve what I have aimed and wished for, not what was expected of me, my opinions are sought for and are respected and I don't have very many complaints. I am not saying that it has all been perfect and my parents have made no mistakes but overall considering how complex this whole game is and how difficult children can be, if I reach some point which is even half way to where my parents are today, I would consider it a job well done!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tarzan, Jane and I
A few days ago while flipping through channels on a Sunday afternoon, I came across a show on the mating habits of chimps. Being a red blooded male and finding no one at home i decided to give the program a chance to enlighten me. Once done, the concept about chimps being promiscuous somehow stuck around in my head and i started trying to extrapolate what i had heard to us humans.
In general men being promiscuous is seen as a matter of prestige in society. You call them playboys and Casanovas, but women on the other hand get demeaning terms such as loose or sluts. But isn't there something wrong here? It does take two to tango after all. If men are promiscuous then women are obviously co-operating in some way to make that behavior possible. I would think that by nature women should be promiscuous too at least Page 3 seemed to indicate so.
I am sure there have been hundreds of studies which say that they prove without any doubt that biologically men were destined to be the way they are for the good of the collective human gene pool. But what about the women? I had never read about female promiscuity or the lack there of anywhere, so i decided to read and find out. What i also wanted to find out was if the monogamous perspective of relationships that we hold so dear, is a natural phenomenon or one enforced by society.
I obviously started with some basic knowledge which i had piled up over the years. I knew that the most fundamental of commodities in any mating strategy is time and how it is invested. As far as humans are concerned child-birth is very risky business and that is primarily because of our large heads. Not only that human babies remain dependent for an amazingly long period of time which means large time investments by the parents. I read a book once called the "Pregnant Man: How Nature make Fathers out of Men" by Gordon Churchwell. It really gives new meaning to the word investment, you have to read it to believe it!
Men obviously have a lower investment in children as compared to women and before we had fancy labor rooms and fancier OB/GYNs women frequently died during childbirth. With that said the best strategy for men is to have many offspring but to nurture less and that for women is to have few offspring but to nurture them to maturity so they can breed. This is probably why most societies treat adultery by women as a far greater offense as compared to adultery by a man. In a monogamous society, an unfaithful women is risking much more of a man's reproductive potential as compared to an unfaithful man.
But then if you think carefully this is a bad model isn't it? If this were the case then all men who remain faithful to their mates are under-performing from a genetic stand-point and the evolutionary mechanism should have thrown them out. But this is definitely not the case. Thats probably because if you look at it from a woman's perspective she would choose a mate who would be the best provider for her children. A philandering man will spend valuable time on other mates and if he does this excessively then he will be a bad choice for most women. That keeps the balance in place.
Moreover philandering is also an expensive activity. It is not easy to impress a new mate, every man know that. There was actually a study in a couple of colleges in Cambridge and it generally found the promiscuous students were the ones with the worst grades. They were overly social and the break-ups which were many and painful made them study less than those with monogamous relationships. So like i said before time is a valuable resource and strategies depend upon how it is invested. The optimal strategy for men would be somewhere in between, that seems to be the general consensus.
Most of the articles i read about strategies for women were just plain absurd, looking at the world around me. They seemed to suggest that women tend to pick up the best provider and they did everything possible to keep him faithful. As a trade for her mate's faithfulness she practiced abstinence before marriage and fidelity during it. Like i said before if this was true then what would happen of the day-time soaps and the gossip columns. This can't be true. What i realized was that I was reading really old articles and then I stumbled upon this essay that was just perfect.
What this guy says is that women are promiscuous by nature. The explanation is simple, mutation. For evolution to work, there must be mutation and the fittest among the mutations survives. It actually makes sense for women to have offspring from different men. Our environment is changing and the list of pathogens and parasites just keeps on increasing. That essentially means more the mutations the better chances we have surviving as a race. The original articles i read were right that women do look for the best caregiver and try to keep him faithful but the optimal strategy for her would be to have the maximum mutations in her offspring. Like men, a strategy somewhere in the middle. I love this quote from the essay, it explains the whole concept so perfectly:
"Assume Jane can keep Tarzan around and raise four children. Her best strategy isn't to have all four by Tarzan -- it's to have three by Tarzan and one by some romantic stranger, a bachelor male from another pack. As long as Tarzan doesn't catch them at it, the genes conditioning Jane's sexual strategy get 50% of the reproductive payoff regardless of who the biological father is. If the stranger is a fitter male than the best mate she could keep faithful, so much the better. Her kids will win."
So all in all my conclusion is that in all probability women have an incentive equal to men to be promiscuous at least from an evolutionary point of view. But all said and done that makes me feel queasy right in the pit of my stomach. Imagine your "Jane" sneaking out for a quickie with some guy she considers more handsome, fitter, more intelligent or being higher on the social ladder than you and you will know what i am talking about. Polyamory and swinging are not for me, I am not so liberated, not yet at least! Monogamy for me please! That is the Indian nurture talking not nature!
Thanks to Eric S. Raymond
In general men being promiscuous is seen as a matter of prestige in society. You call them playboys and Casanovas, but women on the other hand get demeaning terms such as loose or sluts. But isn't there something wrong here? It does take two to tango after all. If men are promiscuous then women are obviously co-operating in some way to make that behavior possible. I would think that by nature women should be promiscuous too at least Page 3 seemed to indicate so.
I am sure there have been hundreds of studies which say that they prove without any doubt that biologically men were destined to be the way they are for the good of the collective human gene pool. But what about the women? I had never read about female promiscuity or the lack there of anywhere, so i decided to read and find out. What i also wanted to find out was if the monogamous perspective of relationships that we hold so dear, is a natural phenomenon or one enforced by society.
I obviously started with some basic knowledge which i had piled up over the years. I knew that the most fundamental of commodities in any mating strategy is time and how it is invested. As far as humans are concerned child-birth is very risky business and that is primarily because of our large heads. Not only that human babies remain dependent for an amazingly long period of time which means large time investments by the parents. I read a book once called the "Pregnant Man: How Nature make Fathers out of Men" by Gordon Churchwell. It really gives new meaning to the word investment, you have to read it to believe it!
Men obviously have a lower investment in children as compared to women and before we had fancy labor rooms and fancier OB/GYNs women frequently died during childbirth. With that said the best strategy for men is to have many offspring but to nurture less and that for women is to have few offspring but to nurture them to maturity so they can breed. This is probably why most societies treat adultery by women as a far greater offense as compared to adultery by a man. In a monogamous society, an unfaithful women is risking much more of a man's reproductive potential as compared to an unfaithful man.
But then if you think carefully this is a bad model isn't it? If this were the case then all men who remain faithful to their mates are under-performing from a genetic stand-point and the evolutionary mechanism should have thrown them out. But this is definitely not the case. Thats probably because if you look at it from a woman's perspective she would choose a mate who would be the best provider for her children. A philandering man will spend valuable time on other mates and if he does this excessively then he will be a bad choice for most women. That keeps the balance in place.
Moreover philandering is also an expensive activity. It is not easy to impress a new mate, every man know that. There was actually a study in a couple of colleges in Cambridge and it generally found the promiscuous students were the ones with the worst grades. They were overly social and the break-ups which were many and painful made them study less than those with monogamous relationships. So like i said before time is a valuable resource and strategies depend upon how it is invested. The optimal strategy for men would be somewhere in between, that seems to be the general consensus.
Most of the articles i read about strategies for women were just plain absurd, looking at the world around me. They seemed to suggest that women tend to pick up the best provider and they did everything possible to keep him faithful. As a trade for her mate's faithfulness she practiced abstinence before marriage and fidelity during it. Like i said before if this was true then what would happen of the day-time soaps and the gossip columns. This can't be true. What i realized was that I was reading really old articles and then I stumbled upon this essay that was just perfect.
What this guy says is that women are promiscuous by nature. The explanation is simple, mutation. For evolution to work, there must be mutation and the fittest among the mutations survives. It actually makes sense for women to have offspring from different men. Our environment is changing and the list of pathogens and parasites just keeps on increasing. That essentially means more the mutations the better chances we have surviving as a race. The original articles i read were right that women do look for the best caregiver and try to keep him faithful but the optimal strategy for her would be to have the maximum mutations in her offspring. Like men, a strategy somewhere in the middle. I love this quote from the essay, it explains the whole concept so perfectly:
"Assume Jane can keep Tarzan around and raise four children. Her best strategy isn't to have all four by Tarzan -- it's to have three by Tarzan and one by some romantic stranger, a bachelor male from another pack. As long as Tarzan doesn't catch them at it, the genes conditioning Jane's sexual strategy get 50% of the reproductive payoff regardless of who the biological father is. If the stranger is a fitter male than the best mate she could keep faithful, so much the better. Her kids will win."
So all in all my conclusion is that in all probability women have an incentive equal to men to be promiscuous at least from an evolutionary point of view. But all said and done that makes me feel queasy right in the pit of my stomach. Imagine your "Jane" sneaking out for a quickie with some guy she considers more handsome, fitter, more intelligent or being higher on the social ladder than you and you will know what i am talking about. Polyamory and swinging are not for me, I am not so liberated, not yet at least! Monogamy for me please! That is the Indian nurture talking not nature!
Thanks to Eric S. Raymond
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Object of Desire!
There has been a shiny silver SLK200K standing below my building for the last two day. I can't seem to get my eyes of this absolute stunner. I think she is one of the best production cars around today and like the Mercedes ad says, she is most definitely on the top of my 'wants' list.
The best part about this 2-seater roadster is that she is a hard-top convertible and there is an automatic mechanism to bring the roof up and down. You can actually do it with a remote, what more could you ask for? Oh, obviously this, apart from the fact that she does 0-100Kmph in less than 8s and heads turn whenever she passes by in any city of the world. What i would do for this car!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
We are same same but different?
I sometimes wonder about the people in the generation before mine. They seem to be so confused about their identity. They seem lost trying to find their place between the liberals and the conservatives. They choose selectively when they want to be liberal and when they want to be conservative, depending on the situation presented to them. Most of the times this leads to very confusing outcomes for all involved making then look almost hypocritical.
Maybe the reason for that is the exposure that we have. Not to say that they are not exposed to things but i think exposure when you are younger makes you look at things with more tolerance. When you are older, the convictions you hold become prejudices. Prejudices are hard beasts to break.
We are living in a rapidly changing world, faster travel is making our societies homogeneous. We have large migrant populations and that causes a lot of lines to become fuzzy. Even though they are different, the migrants have one common factor, xenophobia. I remember school. I went to St. Vincent's High school in Pune, this is a school run by Jesuits and is situated in the Bori hartland of Pune. You can imagine the cross-section of people studying with and teaching me. Even here there was a very clear Maharashtrian lobby, the Marathi language uniting them. That obviously led to the non-marathi junta bonding.
This did create a rift but the teachers did see to it that there were no weird groups coming up. One thing they did was to enforce the mandatory speaking English in school. That aside, the point I am trying to make is that I did learn a very important lesson in school, the hard way of course, to co-exist with different kinds of people and not hold prejudices about people based on their backgrounds or lineages.
As far as I can remember this was never discouraged, to the contrary this was encouraged. But the boundaries were never set, not explicitly at least. Maybe at that point it was cool to have sociable kids. On top of that there was unrestricted access to plethora of books, TV channels and the Internet. That made my view of the world far more homogeneous. I never remember ever saying "your people" and "our people" in any context. In fact I consider that offensive. I am a product of an era which had the Mandal commission and the OBC reservation bill. The way we form my social circles cannot be based on some archaic set of rules. Those rules may have helped in the past but now, at least to me, they have very little meaning. In fact I don't even understand their relevance in the current social context.
Is experience alone the only basis on which decisions become valid or invalid? I believe experience is only one part of the story. It tells you some choices which you have made are either right or wrong but what about the set of choices that you have to choose from. What if that is limited? Will you be apt enough to make a good choice? The choices you have are a function of your exposure levels. A good choice is made with a combination of experience and exposure. That said, I think that I am not way off in the statements that i made in the previous paragraph. I may be low on experience but my exposure levels are definitely on the higher side.
When things come to some important decisions though this whole notion of a homogeneous society is thrown out of the window. Take marriage for instance. I have seen this happen so many times. Twenty - something year olds are expected to somehow acquire a more conservative approach to the whole "Indian-way" of finding a mate.
Something there is ludicrous at the very core. Leave alone the shift in ideology for a minute, look at the psychology of the whole situation. Independence has been taught and encouraged in kids for the last 'n' years but suddenly the independence is pulled from under his feet. What do you expect this kid to do? The only thing he can do is to rebel. The absolute absurdity with which most people deal with a situation like this amazes me. Experience, that is taunted all the time is nowhere to be found. People suddenly become like children who won't listen and who won't stop throwing a tantrum until they get the bright red candy in the store. The idea that young lives and vibrant futures can be sacrificed for a whim or a set archaic set of rules is just so hideous.
With smaller decisions it is easy to relent and given in, but with the bigger ones it is just plain difficult. How do you argue with some one who is twice your age about prejudice? Prejudices and stereotypes are so difficult to fight over because most of the time they don't have logic attached to them or the whole underlying concept is so old that nobody remembers why the stereotype came about. What do you do in a situation like this? Where do you begin a conversation and where do you end it? It seems like a concrete wall which is unsurmountable. I am certain there is a way out and an answer can be found. I hope to do that some day and I am sure it will be one heck of day.
It is high time though that the white hair comes to play and people realize that if they think they have created Frankenstein then the onus is on them to accept it and move on. It is too late in the game to rework the monsters they made.
Maybe the reason for that is the exposure that we have. Not to say that they are not exposed to things but i think exposure when you are younger makes you look at things with more tolerance. When you are older, the convictions you hold become prejudices. Prejudices are hard beasts to break.
We are living in a rapidly changing world, faster travel is making our societies homogeneous. We have large migrant populations and that causes a lot of lines to become fuzzy. Even though they are different, the migrants have one common factor, xenophobia. I remember school. I went to St. Vincent's High school in Pune, this is a school run by Jesuits and is situated in the Bori hartland of Pune. You can imagine the cross-section of people studying with and teaching me. Even here there was a very clear Maharashtrian lobby, the Marathi language uniting them. That obviously led to the non-marathi junta bonding.
This did create a rift but the teachers did see to it that there were no weird groups coming up. One thing they did was to enforce the mandatory speaking English in school. That aside, the point I am trying to make is that I did learn a very important lesson in school, the hard way of course, to co-exist with different kinds of people and not hold prejudices about people based on their backgrounds or lineages.
As far as I can remember this was never discouraged, to the contrary this was encouraged. But the boundaries were never set, not explicitly at least. Maybe at that point it was cool to have sociable kids. On top of that there was unrestricted access to plethora of books, TV channels and the Internet. That made my view of the world far more homogeneous. I never remember ever saying "your people" and "our people" in any context. In fact I consider that offensive. I am a product of an era which had the Mandal commission and the OBC reservation bill. The way we form my social circles cannot be based on some archaic set of rules. Those rules may have helped in the past but now, at least to me, they have very little meaning. In fact I don't even understand their relevance in the current social context.
Is experience alone the only basis on which decisions become valid or invalid? I believe experience is only one part of the story. It tells you some choices which you have made are either right or wrong but what about the set of choices that you have to choose from. What if that is limited? Will you be apt enough to make a good choice? The choices you have are a function of your exposure levels. A good choice is made with a combination of experience and exposure. That said, I think that I am not way off in the statements that i made in the previous paragraph. I may be low on experience but my exposure levels are definitely on the higher side.
When things come to some important decisions though this whole notion of a homogeneous society is thrown out of the window. Take marriage for instance. I have seen this happen so many times. Twenty - something year olds are expected to somehow acquire a more conservative approach to the whole "Indian-way" of finding a mate.
Something there is ludicrous at the very core. Leave alone the shift in ideology for a minute, look at the psychology of the whole situation. Independence has been taught and encouraged in kids for the last 'n' years but suddenly the independence is pulled from under his feet. What do you expect this kid to do? The only thing he can do is to rebel. The absolute absurdity with which most people deal with a situation like this amazes me. Experience, that is taunted all the time is nowhere to be found. People suddenly become like children who won't listen and who won't stop throwing a tantrum until they get the bright red candy in the store. The idea that young lives and vibrant futures can be sacrificed for a whim or a set archaic set of rules is just so hideous.
With smaller decisions it is easy to relent and given in, but with the bigger ones it is just plain difficult. How do you argue with some one who is twice your age about prejudice? Prejudices and stereotypes are so difficult to fight over because most of the time they don't have logic attached to them or the whole underlying concept is so old that nobody remembers why the stereotype came about. What do you do in a situation like this? Where do you begin a conversation and where do you end it? It seems like a concrete wall which is unsurmountable. I am certain there is a way out and an answer can be found. I hope to do that some day and I am sure it will be one heck of day.
It is high time though that the white hair comes to play and people realize that if they think they have created Frankenstein then the onus is on them to accept it and move on. It is too late in the game to rework the monsters they made.
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