God, Sorrow, failure of intellect & immortality of Aatma - Sadchittanand

Its been sometime i have been wanting to write on this topic, almost 8 years since I read A R Rehman converted to Islam owing to his father's illness & finding solace and health in 'Dua' of a Sufi Maulvi. I  first chuckled at the irony & absurdity of story itself, not that I don't find it true or something like that but it is against the tenets & how Islam/Abrahamic faiths see god/Allah.

I was again forced to think when I came across a conversation wherein a Brahmin boy was debating and forcefully asserting that Quran is the most sacred text as he has read it. When asked if he has read any of the Shrutis (Veda/Upanishad), he drew a blank. When further quizzed on what it is about Islam that he finds worthy enough to declare the finality of spiritual/Human quest. He said, Quran is unequivocal about how the god is and has a hierarchy (Only through Mohd) and Personally sits on the day of judgement to deliver justice to the deprived.. I was left speechless - Did someone think of North Korea (Supreme leader), Stalin, Idi Amin. If that is the idea of God that people get out of Holy books then rightfully islam is in danger, not from anyone else but the deranged, holier than thou, secularists & assorted commies.

And then I saw a video of Arun shourie at the launch of his book Does He know a mother’s heart – How Suffering Refutes Religions. Arun Shourie declared his agnosticism to the world in 2011 with the publication of the profoundly moving, book. I must admit I have not read the book but only excerpts. The book is a result of experiences he has gnu through with the pain and suffering of his spastic son, Aditya, and his wife, Anita, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease.

Shourie raised deeply philosophical issues related to suffering in human life and finds the ‘answers’ popularly found in the world’s major religions to be inadequate, cruel(Sometimes), as the explanations, he says, seem to mock at pain and suffering.

I could no longer hold back putting my own thoughts down to the benefit of people who care to read about our own ethos. Arun Shourie has been at the forefront of defending Hinusim/Indic thought against Abrahamic faiths & assorted atheist/Commies & his thoughts deeply moved me.

The trouble with Sanatan today is that there is hardly any opportunity for learning understanding our shastras. The traditional ways were 1. Grand parents 2. Gurukulam & both are in a terminal decline..

With the onset of nuclear families, grand parents live separate and most of them rarely got chance to look beyond livelihood. Instead, we pick up bits and pieces as we grow up, through the media, books and articles, which only confound us further, given the vast scope of the subject matter involved. Hence, the faith of the common English educated Hindu rests on shaky ground. One develops an emotional value for religion without clarity of understanding. An unexpected setback in life is often sufficient to topple this emotional faith.

This is the reason why we find even highly educated Hindus like that IIM graduated Brahmin boy or  Shourie taking recourse to agnosticism, unable to resolve their doubts or come to terms with pain and suffering. Even at the ceremonies where we are exposed to Shloka/Mantras i.e. Birth, Yagyopveet, Marriage etc we go through rituals mechanically because we do not understand the Sanskrit mantras uttered by the priest, nor does the priest make any effort to explain & even if the poor guy tries, we want to hurry up.

and then I read beautiful peace by Vijayvani more or less focussed on Shourie's tirade against Ishwara for which he used the word, 'God'

Rehman/IIM Grad/Shourie's God against Ishwara 

प्रहलाद ने जब नरसिंह भगवान्  की  उपासना की थी तब उन्होंने कहा था। "ये सारा ब्रह्मांड आपका शरीर है. इशके आदि मै आप ही कारण रूप से थे. सारा जगत आप ही हैं। अंत में आप ही अवधी के रूप में रहेंगे और बीच मैं इशकी प्रतीति के रूप में केवल आप ही हैं। 
संपूर्ण जगत पृथ्वी, जल, आकाश, सगुन निर्गुण जो दिखाई दे रहा और जो नहीं भी दिखाई दे रहा है वोह इश्वर ही है।  परन्तु मन कि बड़ी व्यथा है।  यह कामना के लिए आतुर रहता है।    

That gent went on and on arguing furiously that why should he believe a God who is declared to be all-compassionate and almighty, but watches on mutely as human beings suffer or, worse, brings down calamities on people as punishments of Karma. Why he doesn't step in to salvage the situation like a X'tian god or Islamic god who is ever eager to overlook all your moral laxities in lieu of something you do for the cause elf islam. When  I enquired on these specific activities he went nuts abusing.. for benefit of all they are i.e. Convert kuffar to the true path by hook or crook, Do good to Muslims & slay slay the unbelievers in case they don't accept Allah & Mohd.

Clearly, this is the intolerant, judgmental Abrahamic God who sits in heaven and rules with an iron hand over his tribe of believers. Karma is very simple, You must accept responsibility of your actions & subsequent responsibility of it. It teaches self control & responsibility unlike abrahamic memes wherein you can continue to do what you as there is a Jesus/Allah/Mohd who will take care of your"sins" in lieu of converting the non believers.

 A creator who creates the universe while remaining outside of it is a logical fallacy which Hinduism never subscribed to. If the creator is not located outside the universe and if he cannot be inside the universe, then where is the creator located? The third and only possibility left is that the creator and the created are not two different entities. The Isha Upanishad declares, “Isavasyam Idam sarvam” (the whole universe is pervaded by Isha).

 Every object which is created presupposes a material and an intelligent cause. For example, a pot. The potter is the intelligent cause who has the knowledge of the pot and the clay is the material cause. If the object to be created is the whole universe itself, then the intelligent cause is Isvara who has the perfect knowledge of what is to be created. But what is the material cause of the universe? Since everything is yet to be created, Isvara could not have borrowed this material from anywhere. Thus, the only logical possibility is that Isvara is not only the intelligent cause but also the material cause of the universe. Just as the clay pervades the whole pot, Isvara pervades the whole universe as its material cause.

 The Upanishads give us two beautiful metaphors to comprehend this stunning conclusion. The first is the example of a spider and its web: Yathornanabhihi srujate gruhnate cha – just as a spider weaves its web out of its own body and swallows it back when it desires, the creation is born of, is sustained by and dissolved back into Isvara. (Mundaka Upanishad: 1/1/7)

 The second example is that of a dreamer and his dream: “The dream is an even better example: you are the creator of the dream as you have the power and the intelligence to create the dream world, based on your own experiences, memories, etc. in the waking. You are also the material from which the space/time and all the objects such as rivers, mountains, road etc. and people, yourself and everyone around you in the dream are created. As the material cause of the dream creation, you pervade the whole dream world. You are the lord of the dream world, both efficient and material cause of the dream world. Similarly, Isvara is both the efficient and material cause of the entire universe” 

 "The Vedic concept of Ishvara is thus the logical finale of the vexing problem of creation and its creator. Thus, Isvara pervades you and me also! So, when the question of suffering comes, we cannot create a bogeyman called God to blame Him for our suffering, for He pervades the one who is suffering too!"

यदि यह जीव और जगत ईश्वर ही है तो जीव, जगत और ईश्वर में अंतर क्या है ? तत्त्व दृष्टि से उपनिषद् कहते हैं , "एकमेवा अद्वितीय ब्र्हम " (छान्दोग्य  उपनिषद् ६.२. १ )  for the benefit of english readers, it proclaims, " There is no existence aprt from Brahamam". It means Jeev, jagat and Ishwara is same, not two. When you suffer b'cos go your karma in earlier births, he is the one suffering through you.. its the cosmic balance of Give & take.

Educated indians' (English speaking largely) ideas about ‘God’ and his idea of the universe are static to the point of stagnation with no scope for evolution, improvement or growth at all. Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, one will end up with the final question: “If ‘God’ was to create a world perfect in all aspects, then why create the world at all?”

To be concluded in second part on Karma ..

Quotes from blog by Vijay vani

Strategy : Survival first, Creating fear next

I see many managers (Senior ones too) use the term strategy to sound grand. Most of the times they can't differentiate strategy from tactics and it disheartens me. The most abused word in corporate India is Strategy. Strategy as I see is marketing direction, tactics is competitive angle. There are in world today many good Marketers, but they see too many things at once. I see only one thing, namely the competition's main body. I strive to crush it, confident that secondary matters will then settle themselves. 

Strategy, operations, and tactics routinely affect the dimensions of any organisational fight to survive, each in a different manner. For instance, the strategist must aim at the competition's center of gravity, which often is the organisation’s will to fight, or perhaps the key resources or the delicate bond that holds key employees together. The operational manager's center of gravity is the mass of the competition's distribution/Supply chain and its ability to control its managerial force.



To cite an example, recently i caught with one of my CEO friends over coffee. The conversation went like this..

CEO : So what is the strategy for 2014?

Me : Remains same

CEO : You have had an issue and you mean to say you are making no change

Me : Issue is of perception created based on one incident, we will tackle it through some tactical responses but overall we continue on our path to be perceived as ..............., ........., ..... brand & most of the activation as well as communication continues delivering the same message

CEO :  You are talking long term, I am talking strategy for six months..

Me : Tactical response is to ..

CEO : Strategy

Me : Well life of brand is more than mine and yours, one incident needs series of tactical responses without loosing focus on consumers & brand goals... 

CEO : That is 

Me : Giving ownership of brand to Consumers is longterm objective & it drives strategy..

He was confused and looked disappointed..

1. Strategy is about survival

If consumers don't choose you, you are dead. 

Strategy may dictate whether or not to fight, but operations will determine where and when to fight and tactics how to conduct the fight

2. Strategy is about perception

Perception is reality don't rely on facts

3. Strategy is about being different

Being first, owning a USP, Heritage, First to market.. all are differentiating

4. Strategy is about knowing competition

Do you have abetter strategy than competition?

5. Strategy is about specialisation

Focus on one big idea and pursue it

6. Strategy is about being simple

So simple that everyone understands the essence may not be the words

7. Strategy is about leadership

Keep the competition guessing, Off balance..

8. Strategy is about reality

Keep feet on ground

Simple steps i undertake :

First, “a careful balancing of means and ends, efforts and obstacles” brings out the true economy of force, the careful allocation of available resources and organisational willpower to the achievement of the strategic aims. It further connotes the need to avoid keeping large reserves in pointless inactivity to the rear and, equally important, employing large resources to achieve minor, secondary objectives. It calls for the correct timing of the employment of sufficient resources/Force and above all requires the achievement of a carefully calculated balance at all stages of brand operations between ends and means, between inevitably conflicting priorities for the employment of strictly finite resources. The object of everything at the levels of both strategy and operational art is the destruction of the enemy’s state of equilibrium, ideally by means of psychological domination before the decisive battle physically opens.

Second, the need “to make war a real science ” as Napoleon said it. By real, Napoleon meant living and effective. Brand warfare must be conducted in a realistic, practical, and decisive fashion. There is no place for posturing or “phoney-war” attitudes - chessboard maneuvers designed to avoid a major battle at all costs. The attritional stage, battle, is only intended as preparation. Once you commit, no point dithering.

Third, the absolute must is to have highly motivated and regimented Operational team. They must be closely controlled. Left on their own to think or divided by many hundreds of miles from marketing, the CEO , the results could be (and frequently are) rampant indecision, rivalry, indiscipline - and failure. 

Thoughts of a conservative economist -Copyrighted work. 

Jawahar lal Nehru, Flawed legacy of a patriot!

“By education I am an Englishman, by views an internationalist, by culture a Muslim,& a Hindu only by accident of birth."
- Nehru

For such a man to continue using the honoric 'Pandit' with his name to denote his brahaminical lineage is hypocritical as was most of his conduct in office. On one hand he could be generous with subordinates once he was convinced of their loyalty, on the other he could be petty, vindictive & tantrum throwing with someone he felt threatened by - Look at his conduct with Sardar patel & Rajaji.

As we celebrate the birth anniversary of freedom fighter Jawaharlal Nehru, important that we dispassionately analyse legacy of PM Nehru.

Important to know why all leftist / durbari historians gang up to defend Nehru, much more than any member of dynasty (Indira, Rajiv). 

At the core, the dynasty milks the still remaining affection for freedom fighter Nehru, although almost all his policies were disastrous.

Just take 3 examples -

a) Nehru stifling free speech by carving out many exceptions;

b) Nehru's Fabian socialism;

c) dynastic succession.

If we look at it, all of Indira G's excess during 1970s' can be legitimately argued to be logical outcomes of Nehru's "original sins."

Emergency a logical extreme of Nehru stifling free speech ; Indian economic story going bust a logical outcome of Nehru's socialism..

Perpetuating dynasty to son, wife of son, and so on, a logical outcome of Nehru letting Indira become Congress President in 1959.

In 60s, many E Asian countries ditched socialism. In 70s China followed. India started in 80s, but really in '91. Nehru dynasty responsible. Indira clung on to socialism, not even out of conviction - but simply for power. She is the individual most responsible for Indians' misery.

From late 60s to early 80s - an entire generation almost, was unnecessarily wasted. Millions of kids stunted, under-fed, under-educated.

I do think Nehru was a patriot - but his love for India was abstract. He very much had contempt for ordinary Indians. Communist China/Russia employed "jhatka", Indira and the dynasts have employed "halal". Like the burning frog one does not notice it.

There is plenty of material of material of support his fights with Sardar patel even calling him communal.. Read biography of MKK Nair..Some excerpts..

“The difference of opinion between Nehru and Patel explains Nehru’s personal animosity towards Patel. An incident that I heard of is illustrative of the personal grudge that Nehru, the great leader, displayed. The very day Patel died in Bombay, Nehru sent two notes, which, incidentally, were routed through V P Menon to the State Affairs Ministry: the first one was to surrender the Cadillac car used by Patel to the Foreign Affairs Ministry; and the second note was that, in case anyone wished to attend the funeral ceremony of Patel they should do so at their own expense. When he received the second note, V P Menon summoned all the concerned officers to his Ministry and, without disclosing the contents of note, collected the names of the officers, who wished to attend the function, and bought them two-way tickets to Bombay at his own personal expense. When Nehru heard of this, he was furious.”

Legacy of Nehru dynasty's rule is that there are millions of Indians who have no basic amenities and dignity of life.

Fundamentals of a conservative economist.

There has been a chorus of liberals economists who blame everything from excessive borrowing to cheap loans that triggered it in the first place to the political system that allowed this to happen. Not many have looked into the causes of low saving rates in western countries i.e. US/EU. There are many Points that one must ponder over..

1. They are all liberal free enterprise systems

2. EU has some form of state ownership & spends considerably more on welfare/Doles & aging population is not earning enough to sustain the spends

3. Political pressure or oversight led to easing of norms to land to unscrupulous & low credit worthy consumers in US.

4. Banks converted this debt into securities and sold them to other banks on bond market

All these no doubt are important but obvious causes.

Its time we start looking at basic unit of economic activity - Family

1. The core of western population (Caucasians) are ageing

2. Its mostly the immigrant population that is growing 

3. More and more children are being born out of wedlocks

4. High divorce rates

5. late marriages or no marriages

With less and less working population to sustain an ageing population and their health care needs how is western civilisation or lack of it going to ever pay this back?

The current debt ceiling issue in USA is nothing unusual and has happened dozens of times in past but rest assured it will only increase in magnitude in EU zone. USA still has ongoing migration that brings fresher ideas/ innovation and knowledge to create further wealth. EU attracts largely Arabs/Africans from muslim countries with poor education who feed on the welfare system only. Where does this lead us in the end?

We must look into future and see..

Hypothesis 1 : Older citizens,have less incentive to repay debt - another prosaic fact now having global reverberations. As the number of older voters relative to younger ones increases around the globe,the creditworthiness of borrowing countries could decline - resulting in less external lending and more soverign debt defaults.

Hypothesis 2: The basis of current economic crisis in Europe/US (western Civilisation) rests on destruction of family system by liberals. family is the smallest economic unit simply because of human desire to leave legacy,Inheritance, savings for progeny. 

Singles rarely save in western economies as basic needs are taken care of leading to no Savings capital for investment. As a result economies must continously raise debt - Current US crisis now %17 Tn , tomorrow could be $20 or $30Tn. The current global economic model transacting in US dollors or Euro allows them to print without any basis thus exporting inflation to other countries.


Hypothesis 3 : The destruction of western economies will revive the family system and more & more women moving out of workforce to raise children, seeking security in marriage. There will rise in more conservative values with deep divide with liberals i.e. Dems in US & labour in UK with republicans & Conservatives respectively. BJP & Congress socialist cosy club of dole giving parties in India. 

In order to remove the debt fixation of western civilisation, Asia/Africa must force them to change habits and this can be done through the following ..

1. Get into more and more regional trade agreements and conduct trade in their own currencies and not in Dollar/ Euro denomination.

2. Muscle up as West will not easily let go of their currency privileges

3. Reduce regional conflicts so that you don't get played

4. Dont go to IMF/World bank

a. Live within your means or invest through your savings

b. get out of costly welfare, restrict it to education and healthcare

c. Lend within your regional groupings

5. Give more and more incentives to families and stop incentivising bad social behaviour i.e. Single parents etc.


Citizens too must do their part.

1. Reduce credit card purchases as you don't realise the amount of money you spend while swiping

2. Always pay in cash as you count while making payments thus making you realsie the amount spent

3. Get married and raise a family

4. First fix saving amount per month, then spend the rest not other way round

5. Invest in land & Gold

6. Dont buy things that you don't need or you ail land up selling what you cherish.

7. Maintain a house in Village for retirement

8. Start investing from first salary

9. family comes first, one of the spouse must make sacrifice & respect each other.

Mind & understanding of God - Ek meva adwitiya brahamam!!

दर्ब्या विधार्त्तुम इव यानि यगत विधात्रिम 

Like a baby , with our two tiny hands , we are trying to get hold of the mother of inverse who herself holds the entire cosmos. Man can only understand that much of truth which is reflected in his intellect. It is useless to harbour an ambition that we will know god,catch him as he is or a part of him.That is not possible also because there is no universally accepted nation of GOD.

As minds are different,so are the concepts.

How can we imagine god when he transcends our mind & intellect. When mind fails to conceive him,how intellect & sense organs will do? This is impossible.

Imagine we click a photograph of sun from earth. Now click a photograph of sun from Moon and then continuously start moving towards the sun in space clicking photograph. The results will be very different. The closer you get, more details emerge about the surface, likely composition or reasons of producing heat.

Thus we find the image of god reflected in the mirror of our heart goes on changing constantly . This is bound to happen as man conceptualises god according to mental faculties. So in Sanatan, a person with prelimnary understanding has a solution through idea of ishtadeva (Personal God). Idols are just a reflection of our ideas of god... Just like us or a bit more than us. Its not that our ancestors did not understand that Idols are stone/Metal only but even that is manifestation of Brahma. The idol or figurine is 'Nimitta' only for the beginners.

He can't think of anything that is infinite,eternal,unqualified,formless because he has never seen such an object. How will he? His vision is limited , off course imagination goes a little further but it also has limitations. Imagine a new colour? Therefore when we say, god is omni present infinite and so on, that means the more we advance towards him the more our notions of and understanding about him will change.

There is one more question to ponder. How my attaining god will benefit me? Will I get eternal life? People think that they will get some miraculous powers :) in truth however, attainment of god is nothing unnatural or strange. It is in fact, a changed state of my own. In other words, when one gets transformed into the best ideal man has about god through ceaseless contemplation,that transformed state is called attainment of god.For the initiated you have books/reasoning what we call in Vedanta - Shabd. for the evolved he understands. Tatvam Asi ... The truth I am looking for is me. He worships his own Jeevatama & attains the truth.

Api sarvam jivitam alpameva - Kathopnishad 1.1.27

 अपि सर्वं जीवितं अल्पमेवा

Brahma Satya jagat Mithya!!!

Heartless or brainless? Here brainless may mean immoral

Lot of people call me heartless when I oppose welfare or doles. I call such people brainless. Consider the implications..

Some people spending other people's money for objectives that are determined by very same people. Nobody spends other person's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody has the same dedication to achieve somebody else' objectives that he displays when he pursues his own.

More than this welfare program's have an insidious effect on the moral fibre of both the people, those who administer as well as those who supposedly benefit. For the people who administer/roll out such programs it makes them feel almost God like. The ones who receive such benefits, it instills a feeling of childlike dependence. Their compass for personal decision making disappears. The result is the programs land up burning money, breeding moral, economic corruption without achieving the objective which was their intention in the first place. Suppose you were cruel & took away welfare,cut it off. What would happen? The citizens would find a job! What kind of Job? I don't know but They will become far more responsible with their choices & life as someone else is footing their bills no longer. It may not be a nice job,might not be attractive but it will bring down labour prices,kill inflation and establish an equilibrium. Govt should restrict itself to establish a rule of law, security & education

Far more damage is done through rotting the very fabric that holds a decent society together. This is where i say Congress party has done greatest damage. The day a desperate Indira gandhi Introduced 'Socialism' into the preamble of Indian constitution in 1975, Indians lost their marbles completely. The amount of damage Nehru family has done is unimaginable. If we take into consideration the growth of last 20 years too and stretch it to 60 years, We grew at a pace of only 2.1% on an average.
Congress sycophants called it Hindu rate of growth, I call it Nehru rate of growth. Imagine if had adopted capitalism/Manufacturing policies in 1950, we would have been an $11Tn economy, double that of China with a nominal growth rate of 6% only. This is the crime committed by welfare mongers of Nehru Family. Giving out things free instilled a sense of Godliness on them and Poor of this country got into a welfare trap.
The cost of Nehru/Sonia dynasty is $10Tn as of now.
Welfare robs people of their dignity, it puts them in perpetual fear,it reduces them to animals. I simply have nothing but contempt for doles.

Richard Dawkins & the perpetually aggrieved!!!

Biologist Richard Dawkins is a familiar name. He and controversy go hand in hand. For years, the famed atheist has regularly gone after the faithfools, Sometimes chiding them for lack of rational thinking and other times questioning the very rationale of the 'Kitaab'. Day before he again raised a storm by stating a fact. Read below the tweet he posted..

"All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though," he wrote.

Trinity college , Oxford University has 32 Nobel prizes and muslims worldwide have won 10 Nobel prizes all put together. Let me put some statistics for everyone to read..

Out of the 10

a. 6 have won it for peace - Often a political statement

b. Of the remaining 4, One (Abdus Salam) is not a muslim according to pakis as he was an Ahemadiya

c. Of the remaining 3, 2 have won it for literature & by the dint of their profession both of them would be secular. Muslim only by name

So well done Ahmed Zewali, 1999 winner of the Nobel for Chemistry.

By the way, as usual the faithfools were up in arms calling richard Dawkins "Racist". Well dear libtards and commies alongwith assorted brothers of Ummah, islam is not a race it is a creed. thus technically Dawkins is not a racist.

In one way he was trying to praise the muslims by adding"..They did great things in middle ages,though." Excuse me, can you tell me Mr Dawkins what great things muslims did in middle ages. 

a. Zero was invented in India, learnt by Aarubs and taken to Europe

b. Knowledge of astronomy is a gift of India to the world

c. When "al Kitaab" was declaring earth to be flat and 'Zulqarnain' (Alexander) watching sun

drowning in muddy water at the end of earth, Sanatanis called Geography as "Bhoogol" - 'Bhoo' means Bhoomi, Earth, & 'Gol' means Round

d. Knowledge of steel learnt by Aarubs in India

All they did was added empire under the garb of "malsI' thus appropriating accumulated knowledge of civilizations they conquered for themselves.

Failure of Macro economics & Manmohan singh

The Nobel prizewinning economist Daniel McFadden teaching at the University of California, Berkeley,described/mentioned the idea of Everymen held by economists in 2006. “SOVEREIGN in tastes, steely-eyed and point-on in perception of risk, and relentless in maximisation of happiness.” That this description is unlike any real person was Mr McFadden’s point. The Nobel prizewinner wryly termed homo economicus “a rare species”. In his latest paper* he outlines a “new science of pleasure”, in which he makes a point that economics should draw much more heavily on fields such as psychology, neuroscience and anthropology to understand human decision making. He wants economists to accept that evidence from other disciplines does not merely explain those bits of behaviour that do not fit the standard models but also that they are no oddity but the norm. Rather, what economists consider anomalous is the norm. Homo economicus, not his fallible counterpart, is the oddity.

"To take one example, the “people” in economic models have fixed preferences, which are taken as given. Yet a large body of research from cognitive psychology shows that preferences are in fact rather fluid. People value mundane things much more highly when they think of them as somehow “their own”: they insist on a much higher price for a coffee cup they think of as theirs, for instance, than for an identical one that isn’t. This “endowment effect” means that people hold on to shares well past the point where it makes sense to sell them. Cognitive scientists have also found that people dislike losing something much more than they like gaining the same amount. Such “loss aversion” can explain why people often pick insurance policies with lower deductible charges even when they are more expensive. At the moment of an accident a deductible feels like a loss, whereas all those premium payments are part of the status quo."

There are a many areas where Economics, rather let me say Micro/Macro pushed by orthodox economists fails is the role of experiences or shared memories in determining choices. For example your memory of incidents of pain or pleasure is dominated by the peaks of beginning or end of experience. In a 1996 experiment Donald Redelmeier and Daniel Kahneman, two psychologists, showed that deliberately adding a burst of pain at the end of a colonoscopy that was of lower intensity than the peak made patients think back on the experience more favourably. 

Unlike 'homo economicus', as Prof MacFadden would call them, real people are strongly influenced by such things as the order in which they see options and what happened right before they made a choice. Incorporating these findings into models of consumer behaviour should improve their power to predict everything from which loans people choose to which colleges they apply for.

Now moving to the another word which has a lot of bearing on our lives, Trust. Trust is something economists already incorporate into their models. But contrary to the opinion of dismal scientists or numrerically driven Micro economists trust turns out to be not just a function of history and interactions, but also a product of brain chemistry. Pumping people with oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone”, has been found to make them much more generous in games where they have to decide how much of their money to entrust to another person who has no real incentive to return any of it. Sovereign, indeed.

Much of this may be alien to modern-day economists, but it is in line with the conception that other disciplines have of human decision-making. Psychologists have long known that people’s choices and preferences are influenced by others. Worst of all insult to an Economist is that Sadak-Chaap MBA's understand that. Even biologists have a much clearer understanding of why are we driven towards altruism and kindness, whether to kin or strangers, than economists, who typically emphasise the dogged pursuit of self-interest. 

This way of thinking would also have been recognisable to their intellectual forefathers. Adam Smith wrote extensively about the central role of altruism and regard for others as motivators of human behaviour. The idea of loss aversion would have made sense to Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism: he spoke of increased pleasure and reduced pain as two distinct sources of happiness.

I believes that economists need to do things differently if they are truly to understand how people make decisions. Manipulating brain activity is one way of delving into where economic choices really come from. Analysing the information people get through social networks would help them understand the role of influence and identity in decision-making. This is where corporations are taking help of cross disciplinary teams. Its not uncommon to see large firms hiring, fashion designers, architects or psychologists in their marketing teams.

Taking the path Prof McFadden urges might also lead economists to reassess some articles of faith. Economists tend to think that more choice is good. Yet people with many options sometimes fail to make any choice at all: think of workers who prefer their employers to put them by “default” into pension plans at preset contribution rates. 

Such tools have implications for policy. Plenty of poor people in America are wary of programmes like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) because the idea of getting a handout from the government reinforces a sense of helplessness. Dignity is not something mainstream economics has much truck with. The failure of our Economist Prime minister nudged by illiterate party chief who in turn is driven by her band of Jesuit Jholawala inspired nincompoops of National advisory council comes from largely this.

His failure to understand the common but powerful concept like, 'Dignity' has led him to give doles after doles & killing the sense of pleasure one gets through hardwork. He has killed the sense of dignity that one gets when he/she earns own bread. His lack of understanding 'Dignity' is evident to  common men who can cite 100 such instances where any person with dignity would quit the chair of Prime minister & flung a resignation at the face of his party pres.


"But creating a sense of dignity turns out to be a powerful way of affecting decisions. One study by Crystal Hall, Jiaying Zhao and Eldar Shafir, a trio of psychologists, found that getting poor people in a soup kitchen to recall a time when they felt “successful and proud” made them almost twice as likely to accept leaflets that told them how to get an EITC refund than members of another group who were merely asked about the last meal they had eaten.

Explicitly modelling the process of making a choice might prompt economists to take a more ambiguous view of an abundance of choices. It might also make them more sceptical of “revealed preference”, the idea that a person’s valuation of different options can be deduced from his actions. This is undoubtedly messier than standard economics. So is real life."

*Quotations, citations picked up from various articles on web & one article on Forbes in particular.

Rebels of modern era and loss of plot by Islam - contd

Shamelessly copied from writings of people I respect Dr Shiv, RajeshA, Brihaspatiji etc. did not know how paste the link! Very much in line to my thoughts


Over 165 million Indian citizens are Mohammedans and consider Islam their religion. So the question we always face in India is how to discuss Islam without hurting their feelings, exacerbating communal tensions in India, or for that matter isolating them from the Indian mainstream and Indian nationalism.

On the other hand, it would be irresponsible in not acknowledging how the Indian Civilization has been ravaged by groups who have availed of Islamic structures, its paroles and the mass of its adherents! In fact India still faces the threat from these groups.

Every Muslim in India is influenced by Islam, Humanism, their pre-Islamic cultural holdovers, the Modern World and religious apathy. Often Muslims would try to explain the rest - Humanism, Cultural Tendencies and Modernity in terms of Islam, trying to find sanction and confirmation in theology. That would always remain up for debate. Some may consider Humanism to be part of Islam others would consider both - Islam and Humanism, to be the two opposite ends of a spectrum, with every Muslim somewhere in between. Some may see the Muslim masses as simply people enslaved by the Ideology.

It is important to acknowledge that in such a discussion we should always be cognizant of the fact that Muslims belong to India and enjoy their inalienable fundamental rights in India. Also one needs to acknowledge that the discussion is not to humiliate them or hurt their feelings, but rather the aim of the discussion is to understand the nature of threat the Indian Civilization faces from Islamic groups and their ideology.

it is important that we remain dispassionate about it, that it be discussed without the use of vulgarity towards the symbols of Islam. There should be no name calling! However the truth be spoken as it is! Satyamev Jayate!

Muhammad is not really the issue, he was a man of his times, no more or less sanguinary than his contemporaries. The issue is those who fourteen centuries later take him as undebatable. One of the Hindu "ideal" persons is Shri Rama, and even so, Hindus debate whether he was right in shooting Baali and exiling Sita from Ayodhya. That does not make Hindus respect him or worship him less. (And a Rodinson can turn Rama into another unappetizing character, it is not difficult to do.) Muslims have to realize that being critical of Muhammad is not incompatible with considering him the epitome of integrity and the most beloved of Allah. The lack of that critical attitude among Muslims is no more because of Muhammad than the bloodiness of the church set up by St. Paul and made official by Constantine is the fault of Jesus!

The thought that occurs to me is one of "baseline". The baseline is how far you can go in expressing an opinion?

Expressing a contrary opinion in Islam invites punishment. Clearly a mullah who says "Suckle from your colleagues breast so you can work with her" or "Women drivers lead to prostitution" will not be considered sane or rational by most Muslims. So why don't we have hordes of Muslims ROTFL and mocking? One explanation is that they have blind faith and that they really are humorless morons. More likely their lips are sealed because otherwise their fate will be sealed. 

There is a group dynamic versus individual which Islam seeks to ensure through a militarization and constant expansion drive. This is all about using naturally existing physical coercive relations between humans - primarily between men and women, between intellectuals and non-intellectuals [men in power are at least exerting more of their intelligence and foxiness in manipulations to gather support] - to have a social-political system that enhances and reinforces these power-dominance-submission relations. Islam is thus providing at the basic level a platform where men can be "men", women can be "women", power-hungry ambitious men can become mullah and sultans - and the hunger for domination, [hence the peculiar persistence of sadism] biologically over women, and psychologically over society of less-ambitious-less-wily men.

In addition there is the added benefit of being free of guilt in the eye of peers whose support you need - if you are pursuing your own hungers, for women or for power. These desires have been explcitly sanctioned and approved as divine injunction. The main difference from philosophies that have retreated before Islam is that these others always put social shame on biological hunger and power-hunger. [Think of dominant Hindu/Buddhist/Christian philosophies - here "worldly" ambitions and "physical hunger" has come to occupy a socially undesirable value]

People always protect the most vulnerable thing they have. Footballers facing a goal kick cover their testicles. Mothers hold on to their babies. You hang on to your wallet in a crowd. Mohammad and Islam are protected by a death sentence because if you pick holes in either Islam is dead. Or that is the impression that has been created.

But I don't see Islam dying despite unprecedented modern day criticism of Mohammad and Islam. Only some practitioners of Islam are set to lose everything. And they protest the loudest. But Muslims need to figure that out. Muslims are not criticised for following isiam, but they will be attacked if they use Islam to attack others. If Islam's main crutch is the elimination of/opposition to all Kafirs then Islam is set to lose. Those people who call for endless war and violence against non Muslims will have to simply be vanished.

if one wants to actually engage with and help the Moslem peoples, one should use freethinkers and saints as an entry point. Just as it has been used as a pressure valve by the Ulema when they had control over the coercive machinery of the state as well as the cultural space, similarly we can turn the valve the other way by taking control of that cultural space. 

if one wants to see talented Moslems being helped, one must corral the Ulema and their thugs and put the Islamofascist machinery into the ICU. This must happen at least in some critical nodes and non-Arab Moslem societies, such as India, Iran.