Thats-so-Raja !

What happens if a frog and a rat are tied to the 2 ends of a rope? One pulls towards the lake and other pulls towards the land. This is Hegelian Dialectics. Everything is made out of opposing forces (the terms are “thesis” and “anti-thesis” ). And eventually, they result in a state of equilibrium, (called “synthesis” ). Now, the road it takes to reach the “synthesis” state varies from simple sighs to heads rolling under the guillotines. Imagine you have a wall to paint. You want it white and your wife insists black. Lets say you give in to her with a sigh (here, your synthesis is ‘its good to be happy than to be right’ ). Now, what if this pattern repeats a 100 times? That’s when you start a revolution. Because you have been oppressed. Hehe, at 2AM, I can’t think of a better analogy. Anyways! The French revolution was started by the oppressed to abolish Feudalism. Similarly, Capitalism created another social divide. Marx believed that the Hegelian synthesis state is where there is no ...

Have you combed an Indian metro recently? What struck you as the blinding flash of the obvious? The shining India? AND also in a few meters, a POOR nation caught in the slip stream of capitalism? An economic divide ? AND hence a cultural divide ? In short, did you notice the Class Conflict ? It’s the same class conflict or “alienation” that Karl Marx saw in the late 1800s. This has been a cause of my reluctance to move back to India. Because common sense and history tells that such class conflicts will result in social unrest and ugly revolutions as small as “mangalore bar attacks” (google it) to something as catastrophic as the French Revolution. What is the cause for this great Indian divide? The answer is “Knowledge Economy” and the “Knowledge Workers”. Let me dummify these terms first. Think of a line (like the poverty line) called the machine line . You are above the machine line if machines are your slaves. For example, a biotechnologist or a banker who uses a computer to get hi...

My last blog question was, “What makes people popular (in facebook)”. I was busy as a dung beetle to post anything about it. Blaming again my father, mother, mother-in-law and my wife for not being rich people, here I am squeezing some time on it. Remember the “7 deadly sins”? If not, let me be the badass to whisk them up - Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Sloth, Envy and Pride . Now, I think the 7 deadly sins is a fantastic framework that explains one’s popularity. Believe me, thousands of years of research has gone into this. Let’s take ‘ lust ’ for example. Everybody loves seeing naked bottoms? We invented fire to see them even in the darkness. We invented printing press to enjoy seeing their images too. Motion pictures to see them in action. And, not to forget - The Internet. What is the internet full of? Okay, that’s stretching it too far. But lust plays an important role in making one popular. I am seeing my circle of friends in facebook. The sexier ones are almost always popular (...