From The Straight Dope, a great piece of satire: Fifty years later, does America need a stupider motto?
Seriously though, the US is showing signs of serious trouble. Huckabee is raving lunatic, as Pharyngula reports.
PS: My favorite bit in that satire bit is “… and Mexicans continue to occur.” ROTFL with the idea of Mexicans occurring like some periodic drought or infestation.
In the previous post I claimed (not unlike some other observers) that the Nano is game-changing. The Nano has to be seen not just in the Indian context but in the bigger global context. That is why I made the point that it can be seen as the “Peopes’ car” and not “Indian People’s Car.”
Continue reading “The Tata Nano — Part 2”
In the image above, you see Ratan Tata in the Tata Nano. What a priceless shot. Notice that it says “Peoples’ Car” and not “People’s Car” — it is a car meant not just some people but for a varied group of people. It is a car for the various peoples of the world. I am not sure that that is what those who put up that sign meant. Maybe it is just a mistake. But that mistake speaks to a larger truth.
I also think it is interesting that “The People’s Car” translates to “Volkswagen” in German. The Volkswagen Beetle was built upon the express dictate of Adolf Hitler. Curious that we have Mr Ratan Tata as the promoter of India’s people’s car. In any event, Tata Motors is making a game-changing move and I am proud that an Indian corporation is doing so. Way to go, Mr Ratan Tata. May you succeed beyond your wildest dreams.
[For follow up to this post and its comments, see “Tata Nano — Part 2“.]
Just over a month ago, I wrote about Prof C N R Rao’s take on what ails Bangalore. A respected academician and an adviser to the Prime Minister of India, I considered Prof Rao’s opinion to be extremely misguided and wrong. He is at the very least at the top of the heap of educated Indians and should know better, I thought. Worrisome though it is that someone as accomplished as him is so starkly mistaken, what is more distressing is that lower down the pyramid of minds, you find it occupied by minds that are equally if not more confused. A comment from a young lady to a blog post reads:
lol…that was funny wat all mr rao has to say….with leaders like him d country sure is doomed!
its IT whoz saving us!
I don’t know which is more terrible: Dr CNR Rao’s idiotic rant or the response by an “educated” person. She does not even bother to use standard spelling. Perhaps she does not know, or perhaps she does not care.
What matters is that she does not know that IT is not what’s saving the country or what can save the country. If she is the end product of our Indian education system, then it is failing and failing miserably. Not only does she not know the facts or even appears to care for facts, but she is unable to reason.
The country sure is doomed. She better look into the mirror one of these days to understand the real reasons.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
And now for something entirely different.
Well, not really. I mean that in the Monty Pythonesque sense. If you are familiar with Monty Python, you know upon hearing that line that what was going to follow was more of the same absurd insanely humorous ridiculous nonsense that considers nothing sacred. Perhaps nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition but you’d be crazy to expect something entirely different from Monty Python. In much the same way, despite my claim above, you are not likely to find anything entirely different from the usual fare on my blog. Every topic that I touch upon ultimately converges upon the questions of what is development, why is India not developed, and what can be done to make India developed.
[This is a rather long post — consider yourself warned.]
Continue reading “The Problem with Atheism”
Why is the US so Cheap? – Part 2
This is a response to the comments on the last post “Why is the US so Cheap?” I had argued that the US is more efficient in producing stuff compared to India. The people in the US are more productive because they don’t face as many hurdles – they have bigger and better machines, they use more energy, they have more economic freedom, and so on.
Economic freedom is a matter of policy. Policy is made by people who are entrusted to do so. Determining who the policymakers are in an economy is part of the political process. The political system evolved as a historical process from a set of initial conditions which are to a large extent a random draw. Smart people figured out the set of rules that the economy would play under. It is my belief that differences in the performances of economies arise from the differing set of rules that economies adopt. One set of rules may allow greater economic freedom to the people relative to the government; another set may allow the government control over most of what an individual is allowed to do. I believe that the US is successful (to the extent that it is) primarily because it got the rules worked out better (not perfectly, though) than the others.
Continue reading “The AN-WWTSD-MFGTT”
Here’s another guy who is not all that thrilled with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program. The Strange Case of One Laptop Per Child is made by Eric Posner, a faculty member at the University of Chicago Law School. Money quote:
It takes little insight to see that laptops would be low on the list of priorities of the developing-country poor. One Laptop per Child makes as much sense as One iPod per Child or One Snowmobile per Child.
🙂
My friend Suhit wrote to me pointing out a site by a guy called Gurudev. One of the posts is titled “Speed of Light explained in Rig Veda“. Suhit wondered what I thought of the explanation and so I dutifully went and read that post and replied to Suhit.
First, I think Gurudev and I differ in our understanding of the word ‘explained.’ To explain something means “to account for something, to give reasons for something.” To explain is not the same as baldly stating something. I can simply state that “A is B.” However, to explain “A is B” I have to through a series of statements, state reasons, provide evidence, make arguments why A happens to be B and so on. In the post, Gurudev tells us that the Vedas (indirectly) state — not explain — the speed of light to be something and that something is pretty darn close to the speed of light as known to modern science.
I don’t know what the point of the whole post was. Perhaps it was to argue that the Vedas are scientific. I don’t buy that. Here’s why.
Continue reading “Vedas and the Speed of Light”
It makes sense to know a bit of economics, just as it is good to know how to do arithmetic. You don’t need to get yourself a PhD in mathematics in some area like topology or Lie groups. You just need to know basic arithmetic so that you can do your everyday figuring by yourself, so you know whether someone short-changed you or not. Thus spoke Joan Robinson: “The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.”
Continue reading “Does the NREGS Cause Inflation?”
There’s an interesting discussion going on at The Acorn which got started following an article by Vir Sanghvi in the Hindustan Times. The Acorn says:
Just as it is wrong to blame the United States for Pakistan’s failure, it is wrong to credit Nehru with India’s relative success. Assessing Nehru’s role in India’s development requires the space of several books. But one would think it reasonable to credit several hundred million ordinary people of India for doing little things right that contributed to their country being where it is. It is also reasonable to blame a small number of people for doing big things wrong that left India much behind what it could have been.
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 