Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Human Internet

Knowlegde is Power. This is an old adage that applies to some extent today, I say some extent because as openess and transparency increased, Information was obtainable by everyone and what became important was how to collect and use it. This process started with Gutenberg and today the torch is carried by the Internet. However now our instincts are getting in the way of progress.

Esoterism has always been a human tendency, we have such strict protectionist privacy laws, we have such a large minority support system. A very good example would be the family system. Basically the concept was (still is), if someone was related to you by blood, bonds of trust were formed and information was shared without obstacles. In a tribe like setup this was very useful for dissipation of information to who needed to know it (a primitive version of "need to know basis"). At that time human populations were isolated and war mongering was frequent (still is on a larger scale, for the sake of argument lets assume we stopped being blood thirsty), therefore dissipation within the tribe was sufficient, and this concept continued into the modern age. However I find it out of place and the time is ripe for a change.

One example of a mini universe in which the "before" and "after" effects of this experiment can be seen is the formation of the Internet. In the early days of networks, there existed many protocols of communication (proprietary), each unable to communicate with the others, everybody wanted a monopoly in information flow. However this led to outcry from the users, after which the IETF was formed to form standards. Once standard protocols were laid out, the manufacturers had no chance but to comply, because if they did not, no one would buy their product, thus the Internet was born in its present Avatar. Today the Internet is a massive repository accesible by anyone and lead to a great equalization between the plebs and the lords, simply because control of information was lost. However to access this massive repository certain sacrifices are made. The Internet is like the wild west, no enforcement, gunslingers everywhere, which may not be a bad thing, however can lead to damage. Also there is loss of privacy. we all lose some of our privacy when we use the Internet in all its glory.

Now let us expand this same setup to a larger field, our species itself. Lets standardize the protocols, eliminate the differences (language mainly). Let us abandon our human instinct of closeness and choose to shed our past. If we standardize the way we communicate, all information will be available, it will be an ultimate equalization (a realization of socialism, minus the headless czars and dictators). It will be a utopia in the truest sense. I just want you to picture everyone revealing their deepest darkest secrets (including you), will it really be such a bad thing? If everyone equally ascends to this level of thinking, we will just realize how similar to each other we are, and information will flow once again. The dream of uniting as a species, not nations, and eliminating petty boundaries will be closer to realization. The people in power will always attempt to keep us divided for their ends. Let us choose to abandon our privacy and our heritage. Let us eliminate the things which make us different, as they are artificial.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Why I believe the Maoist movement deserves a closer look, and not our usual Indian shrug

There is no such thing as a bloodless revolution, and there is no form of centralized governance which does not wrong anyone.

With these thoughts let us stop for a minute. Stop. Now think about what you know about the maoist movement. In all likelihood, your (mine too) exposure is limited to numerous "accounts" in newspapers and on "live TV" (forgive me for being so cynical about the media, ill explain myself), and of course the all pervasive death numbers. We like to feel patriotic on a sunday morning, picture this, wake up, read the paper "oh my god! 46 died.. tch tch what a tragedy.. what is this good for nothing government doing.. what if I was there?" and the rant goes on for some time, we all feel nice and fuzzy about having a nice political "debate".... Do you really care? Have you really bothered getting out of your boxy suburban flats (I know I haven't) and looking, really hard.

You want to know why the government sucks? Its because you suck, I suck, we all suck. The government is nothing but a reflection of ourselves, I would say a rather rosy reflection too. Who creates the government, we do!! who moronically votes the same family for 60 years, we do!! all in the name of the omnipresent "chalta hai!!". Just stop. Stop shitting on the grass, and commenting how filthy everything is. We all made it so. We all are equal stakeholders in this business of misery, but we just love to pass on the blame don't we. "the politicians are thieves", "caste politics suck", "this country is going to dogs", "terrorists are killing us!!", "lets crush minorities", "the slum next door, who cares, we get cheap labour rite", and on and on. Get up and clean your own shit.

And in this way we have created the monstrosity called India Inc. The desi Wall Mart. All hail, India Shining. Now what we don't realize is by being our lazy, retarded selves, WE are wronging a lot of people. How many of you knew 200000 farmers commited suicide in the last 5 Years, and these are Bharitya Sarkar figures (they do their own little coverups though), when you compare 46 to that figure, you see how many people we are wronging. If you are an Indian I know what you will say next "How dare you compare death figures, human lives are human lives, chii chii", all I can say is you seem to care when a lady is suppressing her jubiliation on TV, and reporting deaths, but when 200000 is thrown at you it is just another statistic. You are such a hypocrite, I am such a hypocrite, we all are such hypocrites.

Now I want you to imagine a set of circumstances which will force you to get out of your happy little rat race, in your happy little cubbyhole, pick up a country made rifle, declare undying allegiance to a red flag, and start killing army personel. Must be a very drastic set of circumstances right? borderline apocalyptic I guess. Thats what 60% of our "great" nation's population goes through everyday, but the magic is, wait for it.... you can't see it, cool rite? You see our "great" ancestors have programmed us to look "beyond" pain, and kick a guy in the ass anyway, and snatch his food. heh. We trade in human suffering everyday, we thrive on the blood soaked labour of others, and we still have the gall to snatch the last pound of food from the dusty broken hands of someone, spit at him, laugh and call it a democracy. heh. You think its all roses? wake up and smell the ashes.

I consider the Maoist movement a small reaction to the atrocities we commit everyday. I do not support their actions, however I just don't think a buncha farmers, live ones that too, holding placards is going to have an effect. Even dead ones dont garner much attention , because these dusty guys aren't "newsworthy" enough for the corporate whores of India. No sir, we need action, guns, bombs, that kinda thing, very arnoldy you see, instant sky high TPRs. But when the real call to the media comes (emergency anyone), its tail-between-the-legs time. Basically our press is a bunch of reality TV hosts, "burn baby burn!!". No one can blame them too, they give us what we want. India has become one big colosseum, everyone is baying for blood/entertainment. Just open TOI, I saw an article about dental hygene, with two blondes in bikinis brushing their teeth (they had to cover all the angles, firangi, lesbian, wet bikinis and yes lets not forget teeth), and we hail this as the harbringer of "education" to the "civilized". Once again almost all institutions are mere reflections of ourselves. And when the dusty-ones decide to vote, off-with-their-fingers time, we have kept them all uneducated, oblivious and cozy, after all why should they learn all these "complex" things, let em live the "simple" life and commit suicide.

Now I implore you to judge them in an unbiased manner, against the corrupt money grubbing theives we all are (look deep, nope deeper, remember when you bribed that guy.....ya that guy, you got it).

There is a war coming, make no mistake, the only question is what after? do we want stalinist russia, or laloo in-charge or are we all willing to share and not spit on each other? Thats up to you, me and us.