Struggle of a child's life.

If it is not a miracle, then it should be declared a feat of no equal. I am talking about the journey of a Indian citizen from his childhood to early adulthood as lots of paradoxes are induced in his life by multiple polarized school of thoughts.

Those who have this special privilege of getting born in India and that too in a middle class, God fearing home, I must say he should be honored with highest award possible on this earth, let us see why.

When a person getting born in this country, any state, no matter if it is village, town or city he has to go through the all of the life cycles and paradoxes of which only few I  am going to describe.

When a child attains the age of the 2 -3 yrs, his curiosity starts to build up, he wants to know, and to experiment about the things. So parents, and teacher alike, tell him the first tale of fear to make him comply to their school of thoughts. He is taught to be fearful of darkness, of people who wander here and there, of far places and all.

Yet in school books teaches to be fearless. All his childhood heros are fearless, I remember mine FLASH GORDON, HE MAN, SPIDERMAN, SUPERMAN and many more.

Second, while child always wants to know more, most of the time teachers and parents instead of quenching their thirst of knowledge, tells them they are too small to understand things.

While all our books, our ideals talk about getting knowledge and wisdom from elders, so it is elders who do not want to share.

When a child want to play with the big boys (parents and all) they simply refuses because of lack of time, hence (child) have to play videogames.

So my point is the society expect exactly opposite of what they teaches to us. It taught us to fear, so we started fearing  Govt, people who do wrong things, starts fearing even walking on road alone, darkness and anything and everything, while when gaining adulthood IT WANTS US TO BECOME FEARLESS! What a joke.

It( society) taught "If everyone is doing a  thing, then I can do that as well", while it expect us to live life like "No matter what others do, I will do what is right"

It taught us to live alone, now they want us to live in family. When we required time they(parents) was working and running after money, now they require time and we are running after money. Yet they want us to stick to moral grounds.

List is quite long, I can write a book on this (But too boring! )

So at the end I am here to conclude that a child’s life is full of paradoxes; society teaches him exactly opposite of what it wants him to be. ! Think about it.

Tragedy of already traumatized victim of Union Carbide ( Now Dow Chemicals) leak.

It has already been more than 20 years, since that disastrous leak, had claimed thousands of innocent lives in their sleep, and yet left dreadful years of horror infested life for those who survives, and now to add to misery, pharma company are testing unapproved drugs on those people.

I have already lost the power of  being surprised by any act of negligence by the Indian Govt, as it has already crossed the limits of the insensitivity.

I do not understand; which part is more painful, people still waiting for the relief check of 50,000 or Rs 50,000 as relief amount in it self.

But that is not why I am writing to you all. The point is "today those who lived in 1984 are victim, tomorrow we who lives in 2012 will be victim".

Is it  really necessary to play victim of circumstances? or of Govt/civic body/MPs/State's negligence? well the answer is not of cource, but only on papers. Had we protested  as strongly as we protested for Ram janma Bhoomi, then we could have at least adequate compensation from DOW chemicals. It provokes the strongest sentiments to see that our fellow citizens are treated as guinea pigs.

The fresh misery for the survivors of the tragedy is created by pharma cos by testing the unapproved drugs on them, all by the name of testing, which is un ethical by the nature. By doing this companies are not only breaking the protocalls and guidelines but putting the risk on the life of poeple.

Now this is not the single problem these people are facing, almost all of them who survived are facing severe medical issues. Govt never provided insurance cover to them so that they can afford at-least medical expenditure.  They were subject to the corrupt local babus who hoarded up the relief amount in their personal accounts.

Also it brings my deepes anger to see that till this point govt ( who is by the people) is not even thinking to help those citizens who elected it in power.

let us make a change in the society, by thw way we want to, and we already know the answer to this. may be we all differ in our answer, but one thing is sure if today it is bhopal who is suffering, tomorrow it may be Delhi, or may be Mumbai, or hyderabaad.

Working towards a Better Community. Are we ?

This essay dates back to this Saturday, where I had a chance to see the ground zero for the how we treat our fellow citizen who are same in all aspects but money.

I had visited a NGO run school called CHORD Ashirwaad, which helps to put child labor in main stream by giving them Education, free of Cost, which is primary task of Govt, of India and its Citizen, to ensure the future generation, remain solid in its foundation.

I felt that the state in which, these kids are in, not only their immediate parents or guardians but overall the country is responsible. I am not writing this essay to make a point about why and who is responsible but  to point negligence  of the problem in itself.

I was also very much astonished to find that, even Junior college level kids could not solve the basic aptitude questions and to add the misery, they cant even speak Five correct Sentence in English, about a topic.

So the question remais the same, how can we  create it, though we all can donate the money to the cause, but burning question is where are the people who are devoted to the cause, we in here are lacking the basic necessity.

Education, as we are fortunate we had if not fine then at least sufficient to enable us to survive; but these people need actual help, not money but people who can groom them.

We all know what we need to do, So lets do it, create a impact, and make this world a better place to live in.

Flawed Measure of Wealth

A very average welcome to all the readers. Average because it is what world seems to so mad about. Finding average of everything is the prime motto of our govt analyses and stock brokers and financial anatlyst's and god knows who.

This originates from a  very basic ( but powerful ) thought. "Daily millions of people in this world die, and till writing of this paragraph, I have not seen even a single incident of taking this material wealth along with, when somebody leaves this world"

So from there originates this flawed measure of wealth, which can easily be a question for a Phd thesis. In this pro capitalistic age of money, where most of the developed world have successfully transitioned from a service based economy to finance based economy, we are in fact more close to a different kind of financial bankruptcy, let me enlighten you, In earlier people only traded with what they have, a farmer can trade on his harvest for something else.

There was real exchange of goods with either money or with other goods, hence a solid foundation of free market and apt for the freedom of choice. There is no denial of the fact that our basic still lies in the consumption of services and goods produced by the people ( and big corporation who monopolies the business). These Companies are made public, and there was a new kind of market and fight for the ownership and shared ownership of these companies, with time this sense of ownership was lost and a new game emerged which is called trading the shares. Till this point everything was fine.

After that, Investment firms begun to pop up and started a new kind of trade called derivatives, with risk as high as "mere 3 % depletion in the value of these so called derivatives will erase 100% of investor's money".

Hence I can explain state of market place as "Here there is no money but worthless pieces of papers lying around".

So this is background of my essay. This kind of financial Economy has given rise of instant Billionaires and instant bankruptcies. Making Money in itself is not a problem, but finding money equivalent to value is a problem.

I will explain it further like this : Earlier when we were kids, I remember all those big kids wanted to become teacher, doctors, may be a photographer, but now I ask my friends what you want to be : "I want to make money" is a simple answer. This trending is in-fact dangerous.

The way our national and global sentiments reflect over the money is alarming. Read the signs, in every five year we are seeing failing banks, which are too big to fail ? Bailout of order of billions of dollars, yet people making absurd money, and not finding enough way to spend it. Two both extreme events taking place simultaneously.

Youth instead of opting for creation of value and quality services for society, is more concerned about the profits and incentive he earns. This disintegration has arrived from the gratification of manifestation of greed.

Now at the end, just reflect do you really need billion dollars to be happy? Do your wife need artificially hyped Gucci or Armani or some common brands but with care and dedication. Do your children need latest gadget or some time?

Flawed Measure of wealth is actually what I find a Known Defect, but nobody trying to fix it. Remember whatever you do, you pay.

If money in itself is valuable, then we could have purchased life and happiness with it. But since we can’t, it proves that it is a token of appreciation for the value you creates for yourself and to your society.

It in itself has No Value.

God Bless

Musing on Life: why philosophy ain't philosophy any more

Growing up in India has its own advantages and disadvantages. This is by far biggest irony I have ever observed ; here everybody teaches everybody, regarding anything and everything, yet nobody is master of his subject. No Nobel, no quality innovation, nothing.

What I want to indicate in my post is that, you put your problem in front of your parents, they will instantly give you an solution, without even giving it a thought that your problem needs some more considerations, your friends as well as your relatives will pour unsolicited advice, which will add  up to confusion and in the end you would think, what wrong you have done to ask for help from them.

This is what troubles me the most. What causes it. Why some people who has so much of success has minuscule rational mind, and why those people who own nothing have the brightest of mind. You luck tend to play in the favor of fool.

So lets take it slowly and one by one the answer of this conglomerate of ethical question lies in the answer of first part. So let’s examine that.

Do some people who has so much of success has something extraordinary called as ability? 

The answer is not simple and it require some consideration. Here we are not discussing the rationality.  We assume that there can be ideal or rational person in the world. So now back to the question,

Since the childhood we dream of success! success means money, Home, expensive watch, Great car, Trophy Wife, intelligent Children, no in-laws and infinite amount of money to spend.

let us see the example of a stock market derivatives and hedge fund working. The breed of CEO take home salary ranges from some hundred million to some billion. Now people who are more capable, and in fact people who do actual work and produce result for the company take home some hundred thousand of dollars. This contrast is visible in every aspect of the financial free markets. Those who contribute the most by the virtue of their ability remain the poorest, until that golden chance strikes. That moment I describe as hand of destiny.

Another example, take the sports, there are many people who are as good as Michael Jordan or as Usain Bolt or as great Sachin Tendulkar but never got a change in lime light. FICCI states that more than 99% entrepreneur never reach to the level of business they planned for.

This was my first point. Back to the point,  if we came to know that my finance minister is no wiser than my driver, then  any one can go and preach some principles(In Parliament; and I do not give it a damn).  That is what is exactly happening in our country.

Take it slow read it again. Let us revise what i just said. we just saw that from a perspective success does not depend upon ability but luck, if we take our sample  population of equal ability. But then all this philosophy( business ethics and standards specially)  is given by people who are successful.  Comman man blindly follows the path and practices preached by these leaders. so since these people are no more able then myself.

So there come the Burning Question: everybody teaching everybody about anything and everything.

And same applies to philosophy as well where those people whose books are being published and rated as good is being considered as philosopher, without being tested on the altar of time. All those who don't have privilege of being published preaches it in local cafe,, bar or where ever you find them and all the retired persons, dads, moms, waiters, college professor etc comes into this list.

Actually this is what I have felt in my journey of 25 years. I have enough knowledge to write an encyclopedia on philosophy, but its all mediocre (knowledge). This is what Paradox :  Philosophy ain't philosophy any more! 

Iatrogenics and Nihilism

Iatrogenics and Nihilism

Two words for which most of us would have to either take pain to type the same in search bar of google  or in Wikipedia.

We start our discussion where we we exactly left them, that is paradox of life, so while we think that we are good at predicting things, but it turned out to be different.

a little example of a commutative error proved our typical prediction o f profits to be wrong by 55%. This error is much more substantial than what is scientifically acceptable.

Take the example of today's world, why S&P is revising rating of BRICS countries so many times in a year? why IMF changes the growth forecast of so many countries for numerous times. Answer is because the conditions, which were different when predictions were made. Now put your thinking hat (and for those who do not want to be caught in thought process while having tea can skip to the last three paragraphs of this blog) can analyse that the condition which was base to these prediction was also a out come of some other prediction, which was also revised (cause i am observing the pattern of changing the forcast by IMF, S&P, wall street hotshots, Economist and et cetra ) by forecasters hence the commutative change is significant from the original forecast, which is always the case and till the time we analyse what these new number convey they produce another one, this in fact shows the helplessness of our knowledge of mathematics to produce results which holds good in our world.  Another point is why people even do the forecast, if they know  they cant produce the correct one. you may listen typical answers from them like "Because you have to have some assumptions" or "Why cant you do it?" or "If you think that you are better than me, than prove it" or "Its not like we are wrong, our predictions are accurate mostly ?? (are they)" or the best one "We have to do it because we are being paid to do it."

Now just observe this phenomena. Do you really care what is the probability of a event to occur? in my opinion we all are concerned more about the outcome of the event. Like people are more concerned about the harvest and always measure rains (moonsoon) with harvest and hence the economy. For a war what we care most the the damage, take a example insurgency in India, was there for 2 decades, but when it hit the WTC in USA, killing 2900 people (RIP), then only USA acted upon it; tells  us  that most of the time we care about the consequences. So it does not matter  if there is a insurgency that killed 2990 people or a war that killed them.

Also ! this phenomena complete this triangle  of our ignorance of knowledge and i will be explaining those fancy terms written in the heading.  We can calculate average weight and height of all population, and yet if we see the effect if most bulky (or fat) person in the average, it is minuscule, it does not makes considerable effect. same is the case with height, the longest man of earth does not makes much difference in the height average. But if you calculate the contribution of the largest firm on a stock exchangeable, you will find it considerable. If calculate the average of top 100 companies and check the effect of largest company, then you will see that biggest companies have around 12- 20 percent of the contribution.   Which is a proof that we face two kinds of things or results or effect in our daily life. One which is explainable by our Developed mathematics and some other which are yet to be explained with the existing toll so f mathematics.

So Iatrogenics : means study of harm caused by healer i.e. How doctor make us more sick with his limited knowledge, How the wisdom of knowledge has its limits and we are blind enough to acknowledge it.

Nihilism: One can get the standard definition from web(Wikipedia) which is complex (and makes my tea cold) so i am omitting that and giving you a nutshell view of it. In my words it is Doing nothing.  Yes some times doing nothing is far better than doing something with the help of wrong measures. remember, i am talking about the condition where we see Winner take it all effect, the world where the payouts are handsome and Failure are blackouts. I am talking about the economy

So in this final paragraph, i am trying to summaries, both new words with first word i am trying to say that the limitation of our knowledge of the conditions prevailing in the world, and that is evident with the faulty models that predict the outcome of the economy and Gaussian curve which we apply on the over simplified problems of the world. Where we forget that world is interconnected and we does not take account of the feedback and feed forward loops of the complex socio economic structure of society and yet we continue to forecast and make fool of our self and others. Iatrogenics is the  correct word for the condition.

and Nihilism is correct answer, I would enter in the markets, or in the competition without wrong tools of measure, rather than playing with wrong tools.  It is simply that fact that measure the risk you can take or take the risk you can measure, i will choose the latter as it is right tool to sustain in this world.

As mother nature, only let the survival of the fittest.

God bless :)

P.S. I am not saying that we do nothing. I am just saying that we do not try to play the game with wrong tools.

do leave a comment if you got my point.

The Paradox of life: A prespective

While going through a book written over predictive analysis. I was forced to think is it really possible to predict the outcome of the event.

let me explain my thought in a most simple way. Please be patient, it may take a while for you to understand the essence.

All of us had studies the Newtons law of gravitation which states that "The gravitational force acting between two bodies with a finite mass is directly proportional to product of their mass and inversely proportional to distance between them"

Why I state this law, you will understand in due cource of this article.

coming to the point, So ask your self is it really possible to predict the outcome of the event?

Lets Have a look at some interesting phenomenon.

Gravitational force is the weakest force possible in this universe, it is propagated by a particle called Gluon, which travel by the speed of light. The most noticeable thing is though the force is weak but the effect is profound. The weakest force has a major role in defining the structure of universe? It is the effect of the small changes which makes the big things possible? or is it just reverse of it?

What I want to convey is while predicting anything we forget to take the incremental nature of error into our account.(or incremental Nature of Force) a prediction which may be accurate for a month, can be wrong by 1000% for a year, because we can't take all the variables in to measure.

Lets say that we are facing the error of 10 %  of result , lets say we have predicted our money into a venture who assure us to give the 200% of investment at every 10th day with a impassibility of 10% error. and lets take a worse case scenario that company delivered at loss of 10% every time for 100 days and we have prediction of getting 2000 rs on 100th day.

but we get only

so at 10th day : 180  (Planned: 200) cumulative error : 20%

20th day : 340 (Planned: 400) cumulative error :    40%

30th day : 480   (Planned : 600) cumulative error : 60%

40th Day :  600   (Planned : 800) cumulative error : 80%

50Th day :  700 (planned : 1000) cumulative error : 100%

60th day :  780   (Planned : 1200) cumulative error : 120%

70th day :  840   (Planned : 1400) cumulative error : 140%

80th day :  880   ( Planned : 1600) cumulative error : 160%

90th day :   900  (Planned : 1800) cumulative error : 180%

100th day : 900 (Planned : 2000)   cumulative error : 200%

so commulative error which is just 10 Percent of the result become so large that it neutralize the output. and afterword 100th day you actually start loosing, which is what happens if we try to generalize the prediction of ours, because we actually cant include everything in our calculation, but knowledge is limited, logic is weak.

So the best way is to keep away from people who try to give a accurate forcast of your money. Cause they are too ignorant to know that their knowledge is not competent enough in this case.

gravitational force if seen in isolation is nothing, but when it works in universe it produce unraveled effect in the structure of universe. this simple law is perfect example of the uncertainty in the projection of the nin linear world.

If any error comes into the picture in the law, then it is exponented to its power 4, which if summed for a period of million year can yeild a alltogether different results.

Which is my central point that, though we predict, and will continue to predict; there is a element of uncertainty which is called as  error in the calculation because we cannot take account of every input which affect the system.

This simplification makes our prediction uncertain and hence, our prediction starts becoming more and more wrong.

By this I am not saying that we should stop doing what we are doing its just that we should refrain from genralizing the things are are lots of example of this concept.
If you wish i can wrote more on this.

Till then Happy time :)

SID-JAY