Rumi Nations

Honestly, I got thinking about this after reading this article in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-making-friends-as-an-adult.html? So we make friends when we are younger. Well may be we are less choosy and have more time. Let's face it, we are not very smart when we are just KIDS! We do not choose our school or classmates. Our parents decide those based on their economic circumstance or their religion or whatever. We do not choose our relations, our cousins. If even after we grow up, we continue to confine our lives to a small circle of family relations, we prove that we are pretty antiquated in our mindsets. As we grow older, we have less time. We do less exploring. I think that's our loss. And how do you RETAIN those old friendships if and/or when you discover that the paths you have chosen in life diverge rather than converge. Just because you happen to have studied in school together, you cannot ov...

Here's my perspective -- from 10,000 miles away. The craziness about gun possession. Who'll explain to Americans that they're not pioneers anymore nor is the West wild. Guns make about as much sense as horse-drawn buggies for commuting to the office from Brooklyn to downtown Manhattan or riding a horse to the office in sprawling L.A. The never-retiring justices of the Supreme Court. And what is it with them being so openly, politically partisan anyway? Overturning the popular vote in presidential elections, venturing into policy formulation ... let the folks retire at 70 or 75. That reminds of the crazy election in 2000 when Al Gore got more votes than Bush -- but guess what! Bush wins because he got Florida and thus more votes in the crazy Electoral College, a relic of the 18th century. And those hanging chads appear anachronistic from the perspective of 3rd world nations. India uses EVMs !! Kill the Electoral College!

        When it comes to human affairs such as love, romance … or politics, things do not change much over the centuries. Which is why history repeats itself. Surely we can find parallels in history for events occurring in contemporary Indian politics. Much is different about the electorate here. In spite of extravagant dreams and hopeful claims about the orgasmic imminence of India becoming a superpower, the dumb data points to the brutal reality. While averages may not always reveal the truth, the per capita GDP of India doesn’t paint a pretty picture. Whereas India barely makes it to the $2,000 club, wayward Russia is sitting pretty at more than $10,000. Is Russia’s average inflated because of its billionaires? Well, India has minted many billionaires in recent years too. The people of Egypt and Libya enjoy a better per capita GDP figure than India… although how much of the wealth (oil and otherwise) of those nations benefited the people as opposed to benefit...

I think 90 percent of males will side with Dawkins in this. And 90 percent females will agree with Rebecca. That seems to be just the nature of this particular debate. This incident has sort of exposed some sort of a seismic fault-line in ho w males and females look at certain events. To summarize the events as far as I know: 1) Rebecca had an awkward experience in an elevator and shared it with the world. She advised men that this is not how one should go about this. I am wondering if Rebecca is a relationship expert or does she proffer relationship advice on her blog? But since it's her blog, she is free to share her personal experiences. 2) Now Dawkins picks up Rebbeca's anecdote and belittles it. Clearly, he burnt his finger in doing so. Dawkins' take on Rebecca's experience is interpreted by males and females. This is where all sorts of complexities enter into the picture. When females talk about Rebecca's experience, they are also speaking fro...

Here’s the substance and sequence of events as I see it. • Rebecca Watson had an elevator encounter that she felt uncomfortable with. She talked about it on her blog. She has every right to do so. • PZ Myers picked it up on his blog. Thus far, this is like a conversation about dating techniques. • Dawkins decides to get into this debate. He equates Watson’s experience with the great amount of suffering that women face in various countries including threats to their lives. Dawkins trivializes Watson’s experience as ‘zero-bad.’ • On the face of it, it seems like these are two distinct and unrelated issues and there’s no reason for anyone to compare these two experiences. Or is it? • One is aware of problems such as date rape and various forms of sexual crimes which take place on campuses. Problems that are unique to the so-called advanced nations. Backward nations meanwhile are faced with the age-old issues: everything from killing female fetuses to killing female infants...

When household robots are around in the future, I wonder how they will be designed. Suppose, you want to have water. You can get it on your own. Suppose you are busy and want someone else to bring it for you. You would request someone in your family to bring it -- Johnny, can you get me a glass of water, please? You will not say -- hey, fucker, why don't you move your ass and get me some freaking water? I would imagine Johnny won't be so pleased (and worse if it was your wife that you were addressing and not Johnny) if you adopted the second tone. Now imagine you have that household robot. Would the robot be designed to respond the same way no matter how politely or impolitely you asked it for water? Or, may be, Hitachi or Honda will program it in such a manner that if you ask it for water in an impolite manner, it will coolly bring the water (hot) and splash it on your face.

I’ve been thinking about what motivates us to be who we are. And what is quite surprising is to realize how much our minds are not really our own in some ways. Sam Harris acknowledges how much our minds are subject to societal influences. The truth of that is obvious and needs to be underlined and highlighted. What constitutes basic needs and what is a luxury? The answer to that would depend on the level of affluence (or the lack thereof) of the society in which you raise that question. Is ownership of a car a sign of affluence? Similarly, what is appropriate clothing for females is again subject to societal norms. There’s a whole spectrum of what is right in this context. Is this IMPORTANT? It would appear it is. We tend to often accept things as the right thing without realizing how relative and contextual things really are. Culture is obnoxious. So is religion. They impact us in ways big and small. I find it uplifting to see and read Richard Dawkins. I find it offensive when Deepak ...

The Tevatron is going to close. The Superconducting Supercollider never came to fruition. Remember the scare when the LHC began running — all that talk about how black holes might get created at the LHC that might accidentally devour the planet. It’s commonplace to hear all and sundry pontificating about the benefits and harms of science to society. Religious people somehow feel automatically qualified to interpret god’s intentions and talk casually about the universe. Scientists however are a different species. They like to be humble and polite and mostly profess ignorance about much of the world and indeed, much of the broad tapestry of science. This is quite admirable of course and in tune with the spirit of science. But this creates a vacuum. And that vacuum is more often than not filled by opportunistic egomaniacs. It’s in this context that one must look at the lives of a few exceptional scientists. A few names stand out easily: Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Steven...

It's lazy thinking mostly. As anyone who has seen Hitchens obliterate the illogic of religion will say, it's a crazy situation why anyone can continue to believe in this nonsense. Again, anyone who has seen the elegant Dawkins beautifully explain the logic of evolution will wonder how anyone can be left untouched by this beautiful tale. But how many people will have heard of Dawkins to begin with. And so this ancient hogwash endures. There are many more reasons for the endurance of religion of course. People are mostly poor — that's the unfortunate reality as it applies to most parts of the world. That being the case, people are mostly busy worrying about how to put food on the table and into their tummies. Intellectual queries are a luxury that only a few can afford to indulge in ... It's odd to see how people regress when they are faced with personal difficulties. Even in prosperous societies such as America, one sees people finding solace in religion when they are in...

There is this 'myth' of there being some steps in the story of human evolution which are as yet unexplained as there is no fossil evidence to back that up. This myth persists because lazy folks like me do not like to read the many books authored on these matters by extraordinary men like Richard Dawkins. So, here's how my good friend cleared my own misconceptions on the matter: " The main argument against Evolution is that there are several missing links; in other words no transitional fossils have been found to show the existence of intermediate species. Firstly, Evolution is not progressive.For example several cave dwelling animals lost their eyes; similarly the common ancestor of horse and humans had five digits but horse has simple single digit feet. So human foot is more primitive. Man is not the pinnacle of evolution. Evolution is mostly managing with what is in hand; natural selection making subtle changes; not going back to the designer board to correct errors....

A foreign publisher of my first book confessed that he could not sleep for three nights after reading it, so troubled was he by what he saw as its cold, bleak message. Others have asked me how I can bear to get up in the mornings. A teacher from a distant country wrote to me reproachfully that a pupil had come to him in tears after reading the same book, because it had persuaded her that life was empty and purposeless. He advised her not to show the book to any of her friends, for fear of contaminating them with the same nihilistic pessimism. Similar accusations of barren desolation, of promoting an arid and joyless message, are frequently flung at science in general, and it is easy for scientists to play up to them. My colleague Peter Atkins begins his book The Second Book (1984) in this vein: We are the children of chaos, and the deep structure of change is decay. At root, there is only corruption, and the unstemmable tide of chaos. Gone is purpose; all that is left is direction. Thi...

Geetha sent me this link ... I don't know how and where she comes across all this good stuff!!! Wonderful and strong-worded criticism of the Pope: http://newhumanist.org.uk/2369/an-audience-with-the-pope I was thinking that all this religion business has become such an integral part of one's life that it's difficult to get rid of it all without having some alternate structure. People don't think too much about the evil that religion is and about the pure lunacy and idiocy of religion. So, they don't mind placidly accepting all the untruths being peddled by religion. The problem is that if you get rid of religious rituals, what do you do when a person dies and what do you when someone is born? How do you observe all those occasions leaving religion aside? I mean, stupid Indians who consider themselves rich (for example, I have in mind, the so-called hot-shot IT professionals) and intelligent do not mind buying a car and then taking it to some temple to have it blesse...

When celebrities die — and these past few months seem to have seen more than the usual quota of celebrity deaths — we see an overwhelming outpouring of public grief and grieving and reminiscing. What a contrast this is to a true tragedy such as when a baby dies. The doctors at AIIMS recently performed a rare surgery to treat an infant who had been born with her heart outside her rib cage. The doctors created a cavity inside her chest and put the heart where it belongs. However, 22 days later, the baby dies. One story of death in a nation of billion-plus people which didn’t get the attention it deserved. Because of the unique nature of the problem and the treatment, it at least made it to the news media. What I want to say here though is this: what does this story tell us about life? Is there anything we should learn about life or question — does this story have the power to unhinge us to our cores? It’s easy to read about this news item and forget about it in due course. But I’m sure w...