Skip to main content

Stockholm Syndrome

Indians seem to have a propensity for this. Once some high profile scamster gets caught committing some scam or crime and is sent to jail, one hears reports about how they are being treated like other jailed folks. We get to hear about how they are having to make do with simple prison accommodation and dal-roti stuff.

What does this say? Should we feel sympathetic to these criminals? What do we know about what all crimes they have committed? How much they might have eaten literally and otherwise.

When people commit frauds running into hundreds and thousands of crores, what can they do with all that money? Do people have any idea of that? If people feel so much about the inconveniences being visited upon these folks, then simply let them free to commit whatever crimes they wish to commit.

People of India have a really weird sense of right and wrong. I wish we would have a stricter law enforcement mechanism and see some serious criminals who have committed some serious crimes being given the death penalty and actually hanged. That would deter many wannabe criminals for sure.

What is wrong after all with the idea of hanging the top 100 scamsters of this country? Are we so concerned about the 'sanctity' of life that we won't want to see anyone killed? Well, then, people need to care as much for the hundreds of people who die everyday in senseless accidents on the roads of India. How many kids die in this country from childhood cancers?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Longforms and 'Best of 2017' Lists and Favorite Books by Ashutosh Joglekar and Scott Aaronson

Ashutosh Joglekar's books list. http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2018/03/30-favorite-books.html Scott Aaronson' list https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3679 https://www.wired.com/story/most-read-wired-magazine-stories-2017/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/12/the-best-books-we-read-in-2017/548912/ https://longreads.com/2017/12/21/longreads-best-of-2017-essays/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/21/world/asia/how-the-rohingya-escaped.html https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-journalists-covered-rise-mussolini-hitler-180961407/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/artificial-intelligence-future-scenarios-180968403/ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/20/citizen-kay https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/where-we-are-hunt-cancer-vaccine-180968391/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/dna-based-attack-against-cancer-may-work-180968407/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/22/dona...

Edward Snowden

This seems to me to be the defining journalism-whistle-blower story of this generation. It's rare in today's world when privileged people voluntarily choose to take steps whereby they give up comfortable lives to do something that is in the 'public good.' Mr. Snowden was clearly a computer whiz which explains why he got jobs at the CIA (including postings in Geneva under diplomatic cover). Booz Allen obviously did not hire him or pay him the $1,20,000 salary without Mr. Snowden showcasing some considerable technical expertise. I believe Mr. Snowden's expertise probably lies in having deep expertise in various flavors of Linux. That is what I am inclined to infer from his various job roles as a 'Systems Engineer' or 'System Administrator.' Being the self-driven sort of person that he was, I am sure he must be having good knowledge about networking and encryption stuff including but not limited to Cisco routers and related technologies. ...