Google led the way in terms of the waves it created, followed closely by Apple and Facebook. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that Google had a perfect 6 months, or that it made no mistakes. On the contrary, the reason for this article is my opinion that Google has quite a bit of work to do. Oh, and ignore the title, it was just bait

One of Google’s main strengths has always been, and always will be innovation. Google thrives on challenging the best and delivering.

Take their search engine. From being virtually unknown to becoming a verb for searching the web; or Google Chrome, which everybody (hyperbole) is suddenly using; to Android, the awakening giant. Google has managed to hit home run after home run where technological excellence and innovation are concerned.

But, oh, do they need to learn about people! They have utterly, embarrassingly failed at anything to do with people. Take the Nexus One – arguably the best damn Android phone out there (keep your pantyhose on, I said arguably), but its sales absolutely flopped! Why? Because it was a bad phone? Hell, no!

They smugly assumed, on the basis of their previous efforts, that people would just line up to buy the Nexus One! Without the backing of any major American mobile network firm, without any marketing at all – yeah, not happening.

Or take their decision to have Google Buzz auto-follow people. Or to have their Google’s home page have a background image by default for everybody (for fuck’s sake, don’t mess with my Google Search!). Google seems to have forgotten that data is not people. No matter how many internal tests, surveys, focus groups they run, you cannot possibly anticipate human sentiment or irrationality.

The people at Google are smart enough to eventually figure this out. Eventually, they are going to get people on board their management who get people. I just hope for their sakes and ours that it happens sooner than later!

Looks like you’ve fallen for the old “but it’s gotta be more than just that” trap. I’ll clarify in a moment. But to begin with, I don’t like the phrase “purpose of life”. It just sounds too lofty – as if life has chosen or been assigned a goal for itself. The truth is more like “it happens”. Maybe I’d call it “the impetus of life”. The point is – life is a consequence, not a motive force.

Now to address the other concerns you had. Your first contention is that the propagation of genes is not the only ‘purpose’ of life and you illustrate with the example of the baby kangaroo (kangaroo?! really!!). True, the roo baby runs away from the croc, but it’s an impulse that has evolved to let the roo baby survive into adulthood so it can have its own roo babies. Sure, that’s not what it’s thinking about while it is running away, but that’s only because evolution is very good at fooling ‘life’ to achieve its (evolution’s, not life’s) goals.

Let me illustrate: if a baby – roo or human or whatever – puts its grubby paw into a fire, it will certainly learn a lesson not to do that again. The instinct to withdraw from the source of the pain is exactly that – an instinct. The baby doesn’t think, “oops… what’s that smell. Hmm… doesn’t look too good. I’m going black. Nope… this won’t do. I gotta survive until I’m old enough to bag me some booty. Let’s take that hand outta the fire.” PAIN does all that for the baby without him even realizing it. Just another example of evolution ‘fooling’ us all into achieving its ends. In fact, all our instincts are just evolution’s tricks to make us survive and procreate – fear, pain, hunger, horniness, you name it.

The same applies to people who don’t want to have kids. You see, as far as evolution is concerned it’s not the kids that matter, but sex. Another ‘trick’ of evolution. The theory is that if you have enough sex you’re pretty much guaranteed to become a mommy or daddy soon enough as long as all the organs are working as they should. That’s before we invented condoms and birth control and stuff – but of course that doesn’t really count in evolutionary terms except perhaps to illustrate that evolution has created a sort of Frankenstein in us humans – its creation that is smart enough to thwart evolution’s own mechanisms… heh. But yeah, the point is that even people who don’t want kids like sex.

Sure there are people who feel no pain or hate sex or commit suicide. These anomalies are at the very root of evolution. You see, each ‘copy’ of the genes is slightly different from the previous one. So that causes subtle changes from generation to generation. Usually these changes are too small to make a difference to the offspring in any way, but sometimes they either help it (sharper eyes, bigger brain, pain, fear and so on) or harm it (asymmetrical legs, mental illness, out-of-control emotions, etc). These changes are what cause all evolution. The ones better adapted to survive get to pass on their genes and continue their dynasty while the ‘unfit’ ones do not. For instance, someone who hates sex will not get to pass on his/her genes and that anti-sex impulse will disappear from the gene pool. Or the genes of a baby roo that decides to make friends with the croc will disappear in a crunchy snack. Over millions of years, these little physiological and behavioral changes cause new species to appear and evolve themselves.

To be sure these ‘unfit’ individual exist even among us today – some survive into adulthood only because of modern medicine, and many will not get to pass on their ‘inferior’ genes. I put inferior and unfit in quotes because they’re not absolutes – evolution is dependent on the environment. I won’t go into a thesis here, but suffice it to say that if the environment changes, the ‘inferiority’ or ‘superiority’ of genes (and I mean this ONLY in terms of survivability) can change dramatically. For instance, children with juvenile diabetes would not have survived into adulthood a hundred years ago, but they lead almost normal lives today and even go on to have kids of their own. The environment changed (modern medicine came along) and that particular ‘inferiority’ of their genes suddenly didn’t matter anymore. The same can’t (yet) be said for juvenile Huntington’s patients or those susceptible to fatal early onset cancers. Those genes still have ‘inferior’ survivability and will likely get nipped in the bud.

Moving on to another point – ‘Sacrificing self for others’ might seem like a contradiction, but it’s really not – you wouldn’t normally do it for a stranger, but for the people you love – most likely your spouse and children. By doing that, you’re STILL protecting your own genes by ensuring that they get a chance to continue the dynasty.

And there are even theories of specie-wide bonds that help entire species survive. For instance, if you were wandering through the forest and came upon a leopard and a man facing off, you’re likely to rush to the aid of the human. It’s instinctive, and it’s a weaker bond compared to the one you share with your kids, but it’s there. However if you came upon your brother fighting another guy, you’re likely to help your brother. The theory is that the closer someone is to you in the gene kaleidoscope, the more likely you are to stick up for him or her. Think tribes, states, countries and even races/religions. Again, NOT a perfect or universal behavior by a long shot, but statistically quite accurate.

Then of course there’s also the social influence to consider. It can sometimes override the evolutionary impulse. Ironically, the social instinct has evolved because it helps (statistically) the survival of the species and each individual in it. However, sometimes an individual pays the ultimate price for it. In the end, the price to pay (‘sacrifice’ of an individual) is far outweighed by the reward of social instinct. It’s a numbers game for evolution, not an individuals game.

To address the case of the organism that can’t procreate but continues to fulfill its other needs… It’s like a computer with busted speakers – just because the speaker doesn’t work doesn’t mean the computer will seize up, right? All the other processes that evolution put in place to ensure the transfer of genes will continue to work until the individual dies. Don’t forget – the organism doesn’t know that it’s only a tool in evolution’s hands. It’s only logical – there’s no supreme authority that will automatically eliminate an individual just because its dick doesn’t work or whatever. That ‘negative’ trait of not being able to procreate will automatically disappear from the gene pool because, well, it can’t procreate.

‘Contentment’ or ‘Happiness’ as the purpose of life is a philosophical concept, not an evolutionary concept. An unhappy or discontent individual is just as likely to survive and have kids as a happy one, maybe even more so depending from individual to individual. Evolution doesn’t discriminate based on happiness, only survivability and procreatibility (yup, just invented that word!).

Happiness as the goal of life is great as a philosophical concept. In fact, I couldn’t agree with it more. The ultimate purpose I’ve chosen in life is to bring myself as much happiness as possible. But I don’t think this drive is universal and it is certainly not vital to survival. I don’t even think it’s instinctive, except perhaps at a very basic level where satisfaction of hunger/thirst/sex urge brings ‘happiness’.

Conclusion – The impetus of life is to survive as long as possible or in some species until procreation (as in the case of your spider and many thousands of other species that die as soon as they lay their eggs) and to pass on its genes from generation to generation. In fact that’s the very definition of life.

Think about it – the simplest systems are the ones that are most likely to work and endure for billions of years. It can’t get simpler than “pass those genes”. Everything else is incidental. You can’t have different rules for different species, and as you aptly pointed out, micro-organisms are surely not thinking about spiritual fulfillment. So that leave us with “PASS THOSE DAMN GENES!”

How do they do this? They are able to start slotting you the second you visit a website. Your IP address immediately lets them know where your geographical address, and cookies on your computer help uniquely identify you. Thus starts your profiling. If you are part of an online community or website like Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, they would know what your age, sex, etc., is from your profile.

If you are part of social media websites like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, this information becomes even more detailed, even allowing them to create a ‘social graph’ of your friends, acquaintances and interactions. In the near future, search engines will start  suggesting more appropriate results for you based on what your friends’ updates, blogs, etc.!

If all this sounds alarming, it should. I am not going to discuss the ethics of this, or suggest solutions. However, I would like to share a very interesting development.

BlueKai, the US’ largest behavioral data provider has opened up their system to enable you to see what information they have on you. By visiting http://tags.bluekai.com/registry, you can see what information their database has about you.

Though BlueKai is a small provider, and has a limited dataset primarily restricted to the US, it is very interesting to see what kind of information they can collect. Check out the demo they’ve shown of how they can collect your information by visiting the fictional website link. They also allow you to remove your personal information from their database.

I think what BlueKai is doing is definitely a step in the right direction. Online marketers should follow in their footsteps, and reveal exactly what personal identifying information, or behavioral data they are collecting. Failing to do so might lead to legislation protecting consumers, or a consumer backlash.

I love you. Let’s get that cleared at the outset. You are one of the few companies that I admire and trust. I have watched your stupendous rise over the past years and marveled at your vision and unwavering faith in your core principles. As your loyal customer, I take pride in your belief that an open, social, magnanimous approach will pay off in the long run. I watch with awe as you commit to long term goals, and put your money where your mouth is – which few others dare do.

You see a world of plenty where others see scarcity. Your creativity results in products and services that millions use and love.

However, in spite of all that, I believe there is room for improvement. While you create 100s of products and services, many of them get left by the wayside when you decide they are not worth pursuing. This leaves any users of these products in a very awkward position.

Examples include your Gtalk messenger, and the Gmail notifier, both of which I use. The Gmail notifier has not seen any improvement in years, and there does not seem to be a proper support cycle for it either. An example of this is the fact that though HTTPS was made compulsory for Gmail, the notifier has not been updated to support this. An ugly registry hack has to be downloaded for the notifier to enable HTTPS support.

Similarly, Gtalk seems to have fallen out of favor, and I can see why. You would prefer to have a web browser based presence, which you are pushing across all products. You have developed an amazing in-email video conferencing client for Gmail. As a result, the Gtalk messenger lacks any of the ‘advanced’ capabilities like video chatting that the in-email client does.

For me, the Gmail notifier and Gtalk messenger are the preferred modes of using your service. I understand that you often try and experiment with services to see which ones would make sense, and which ones wouldn’t.

However, you should never abandon customers with half-hearted attempts like the Gmail notifier and Gtalk messenger. This will end up creating friction and discontent in the long run.

If you provide a service or product, please ensure that you intend to fully support it and its users. Else, do not make it available. A few exceptions are fine, but abandoning a product should never be an easy decision for you. Also, putting the ‘beta’ label on a product in no way excuses you from providing the highest level of service and support.

In conclusion, I would suggest you listen to customers more – in our collective whines you will often find gems that just might take your service and products to the next level, and help you find your next gigantic success where you least expect to find it.

Your loyal fan,
Donniel

P.S. I love the Nexus One! It’s not available in Dubai, though, so I can’t get my hands on it anytime soon Send me one please?

Any decisions they make impact the lives of millions, if not billions of people worldwide, and so it’s not surprising that there is so much discussion over their threats to pull out of China over what appears to be an attempt by the Chinese government to hack into Google’s infrastructure. This was purportedly to hack into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists (at least two attempts were partially successful).

While there isn’t exactly a wealth of evidence confirming the role of the Chinese government in these attacks, China’s extremely poor track record when it comes to human rights, and their readiness to aggressively target ‘unfriendlies’ suggests this is quite feasible. Further, Google would not have blamed the Chinese government were it not extremely sure that they were responsible. Remember – while they haven’t named the Chinese government, their actions and response have clearly shown they believe the government to be responsible.

Much has been said about Google’s possible motivations, which mainly fell into the main categories of:

• A corporate decision, stemming from their failure to make a significant foothold into the Chinese market, or because there was a great threat to their proprietary property (code, data)
• An ethical decision, possibly fueled by co-founder Sergey Brin’s ideals and an internal belief in their slogan ‘do no evil’

There is also a lot of criticism leveled against Google, since it was widely believed that entering the Chinese market at the cost of censoring results according to the Chinese government wishes was a sell-out.

Personally, I believe that this was a laudable and extremely courageous move by Google. I was one of those who was disappointed by Google’s cop-outs when they agreed to censor their search results for China. While I didn’t think that it made Google ‘evil’ (as many believed), I did felt that they had diluted their core ethics and principles. Google did claim that by allowing the Chinese people greater access to information, they were doing more good than harm, and arguably this was true.

In any case, I certainly do not believe that Google’s present move was because of purely corporate reasons – though my first reaction was that an attack on their proprietary code would be the biggest blow to Google in its short history. The first stated reason: that Google was pulling out because it failed to gain a foothold into the Chinese market, and was using this attack as an excuse is ludicrous. Google has a 21% share in the Chinese market, and is second only to the Baidu search engine. It’s revenues were ‘only’ somewhere between 300-600 million dollars. That is by no means a failure, even if Google wasn’t turning a profit (which I doubt). Google is known for its long term strategies – it often adopts long-term strategies, at the cost of immediate profits. Tons of examples abound, including the open source Chrome, Chrome OS, Android, Google Voice service, Gmail, et al. At present, it has only one primary source of revenue – Google AdSense, and a portion of this is exactly what it is sacrificing when pulling out of China.

It makes no sense to me that a company would leave the world’s most promising, most lucrative market because it failed to utterly dominate it! Since when is a 21% market share, and revenues in the 100s of millions of dollars a bad thing?! Remember that Google also does not lead in a number of other countries, including Japan and South Korea, where Yahoo and Naver respectively lead.

Also, just because Google hasn’t been able to dominate yet wouldn’t mean that a pull-out was the answer. Far from it. Google has the cash, the resources and the time  - the Chinese market will only expand in the coming years, meaning that 21% will grow to many millions of users more.

Further, the search engine market share is only one of Google’s main concerns in China – it also depends upon a highly trained Chinese workforce (which develops solutions for Google’s global offerings). Google also stands to lose millions of sales of its Android powered handsets – which Google believes will be one of its core offerings and revenue generators in the coming years. China has been a lucrative market for Android handsets, and Google will definitely take a hit in Android sales if it pulls out of China. Staying in the Chinese market is critical to these concerns.

The second stated possibility, that Google was worried about its proprietary data and code holds more water, it would appear. Google search is one of the only products that Google has said it will not open up the source code for, and with good reason. Also, compromising the data of user searches, IP addresses, emails, etc., would be devastating for Google – even if only the business perspective was considered.

However, I don’t think this would have warranted a Google exit, and such a public denouncement of the Chinese government’s attacks (though it did not name them, it was clear a finger was being pointed at the Chinese government). The reaction would have been different – maybe a press release, followed by some massive restructuring of its Chinese operations.

What happened, however, seems to be more of a ‘scorched earth’ exit policy, as has been widely reported. Google has quite decisively severed ties with the Chinese government, to the point of possibly losing out on ALL its revenue sources – present and future in the market. That does not to me, sound like a purely security-oriented reaction. It is quite clearly, a political decision, and one that could only come from the topmost echelons of Google. Without being able to back it up with any proof, I suspect that this was a decision that occupied the hearts and minds of the co-founders for mostly ethical reasons.

I am not saying that there was no business rationale behind it – that would be naivety. However, I think the driver was not business, but ethical. Google as I  have mentioned, has been known to take a long term approach to decisions, and in their minds, this might be the most sensible business decision in the long term.

We will have to wait and see how this plays out, and whether Google’s gamble is successful in the long run. I, for one, applaud Google, and hope that this is a decisive moment, that shapes history beyond just a business perspective. I would love to see more wide-spread support for Google, possibly with more companies revolting against China’s government’s dictatorial shackles. I would hope the Chinese public offers support for Google as well, and forces a gradual and lasting change in the government’s policies and outlooks. After all, very few want a future with China as a bully forcing companies and people to bend to its wills to do evil. China would do well to changes its ways and adopt Google’s mantra as its own, and do no evil.

Ladies and gentlemen. I am going to do what numerous philosophers, scientists, religious nuts, movie protagonists and cats have tried to do for centuries.

I am going to uncover the meaning of life. Or if not that, at least the purpose of life. And I am going to do it in one sitting.

Calm down, now, calm down ladies, no need to cause a scene. Yes, I am available, thank you for asking.

Why?

Why? Err…’cause that’s what I do. I…solve stuff. And…uncover mysteries. Like the Famous Five. You know, those teens who went about solving mysteries? The ones Enyd Blyton wrote about?

* tumbleweed *

Well, in any case, that’s not the point. That’s a discussion for another day, ‘mkay?

The purpose of life

Like ever teenage boy spurned by a hot chick, I set out asking “Why? Why are we here? Why does she prefer that arrogant asshole over me?”. I spent long hours thinking about the meaning of life, the purpose of it, but I got nowhere. I had quit believing in a greater power, a ‘God’ some time ago, so I couldn’t just raise my eyes lovingly into the air and declare “our purpose on this Earth is to love and praise God almighty”.

I suspect that was assisted by my lingering suspicion that I might be God myself. I mean, c’mon. Have you seen me? My dog and I had long discussions about this over the summer vacations, but we couldn’t reach a conclusion. I mean, my dog didn’t say much, but would listen intently with his ears up, and I would explain my point of view. I gathered this meant that I was right, or that my dog thought I was nuts. I was never able to decide which.

Then I grew into adulthood. Actually, that’s what I have been told. I have yet to really understand what that means, but have gleaned that it’s mostly got something to do with more body hair and being able to buy booze.

In any case, I continued thinking about this question, and discussing it with my friends. Reading books didn’t help much either. The prevalent view that the only purpose of life was to transfer your genetic code to your offspring seemed somehow unsatisfactory.

Sure, nature seems to suggest so. Every living organism’s primary motivation seems to be to ensure that it produces offspring (a thoroughly enjoyable endeavor in many cases). This overrides other seemingly basic drives like survival, even. For example, consider the case of the Praying Mantis. The female initiates sex by biting off the male’s head. Ouch.

“Honey, I’m home. How about some – aargh, my hea-”

Yikes. Then there’s the case of the female spider. After her eggs hatch, the baby spiders eat their mother. That’s their first meal. I’m not even going to try and locate a reference to back that up, because it’s way too icky. Yuck.

Hold on while I go take a swig of wine to calm my nerves. I hate spiders.

Aaaanyways. The point is that you will find various examples in nature of organisms that are willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their offspring. This is extremely curious behavior, if you think about it.

Keeping aside sentimental retorts of “that’s love, dodo-head”, this does not make any sense. Actually, even the fact that we think that we are willing to sacrifice our lives for our loved ones does not make sense. In fact, this was one of the clues that helped me find…

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

Oh wait…the intro credits were a bit late. My bad.

In any case, after my extensive research (read the back covers of a couple of science-y looking books), it appears that scientists believe that the sole purpose of life is to transmit your genetic information to the next generation. I am almost certainly mis-stating their actual statement, and am 89.8733% sure I have fucked up somehow. But I shall continue blundering ahead, as I am wont to do. In this way, I shall make my point, and unveil

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

Oh shi…I did it again, didn’t I?

Do you have a point, dork?

Yes. It’s that I believe it ain’t that simple, darlin’.

While most natural phenomenon seem to suggest that they are correct, and that every living organism’s primary intention seems to be to pass on their genetic imprint – be it via sexual reproduction, splitting into two, copying themselves over (think virii), they seem to be interested only in ensuring that their genetic code (DNA) gets transferred on to the next generation. They do this even at the cost of their own survival. By dying to ensure that the next generation survives, they pass on their code.

There is no other possible purpose in life, that even comes close to being the answer:

• Survival: Nope, I just proved decisively that this cannot be the case above.
• To praise and love an everliving God: Back in the nuthouse, jackass. Oh, fer Chrissakes. How was the spider mom showing her love for God when… * runs off and barfs in the corner *
• Fun!
• Evolution: Maybe the purpose of life is to evolve? By evolving over time, organisms can…yup, back to square one.
• World domination: Again, why?
• …see why this is so confusing?

So where does that leave us? Nowhere? Not quite! Hidden in those options is the correct answer. It’s not the first one. Not the last one either. Yes, I mean….

FUN!

Settle down, people, settle down. There’ll be plenty of time for a Q & A session later (yeah, right, like I’m going to listen to somebody else’s point of view!).

It’s not as simple as that. You see, fun is not an accurate term. I can generalize it more by calling it “Contentment”. The purpose of life is Contentment.

I claim that every living organism strives for contentment. Be it a germ, a ravenous monkey, a marauding tiger, or the mighty human. We all are searching for contentment.

What the heck does that mean?

Well, different things for different organisms. For a lower organism, contentment means being able to survive and reproduce. It would be useful to pull out Maslow’s heirarchy of needs at this point.

• Self-actualization
• Esteem
• Love/Belonging
• Safety
• Physiological

Maslow, this really clever dude, felt that any human being has needs ranging from the basic to the advanced. Starting from the basic physiological needs of breathing, food, water, sex (booyah!), sleep, homeostatis (the need for a stable environment), excretion moving up to self-actualization (achieving morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, yada yada).

While I haven’t bothered reading the full description of his, I think he’s on to something. It makes sense that a similar pyramid of needs can be applied to any organism. It might look like this (in order from basic to advanced, with basic at the top):

• Survival
• Survival of genes into the future
• Contentment

I further claim, that these are not necessarily at the same time. You might have an organism pursue surival and contentment at the same time. Or SG (survival of its genes, shortened, ’cause I’m lazy) and contentment. Or survival and SG. Or all 3 at the same time.

The first one if obvious. In order to fulfill any of the following needs, the organism needs to survive.

The second one is ‘Survival of genes into the future’. Creating offspring falls into this state.

The last one is contentment. This is basically a state where the organism is happy with its lot in life. Yup, that’s intentionally vague. But what’s important is that the organism is striving in earnest to achieve a state of contentment.

Now let’s apply these goals to organisms to get a better understanding of what I mean.

To begin with, let me talk about why I think scientists are wrong about propagation of genes being the only purpose of life. It might be one of the primary needs/goals, but not the only one.

Imagine a young organism. A baby spid…err…kangaroo. Let’s say it is happily grazing on grass in a meadow, when it spots a crocodile who got lost on the way to the deposit money in the river bank. Get it? Bank! Haha…err…in any case, the ‘roo’s scared shitless.

Do you think it gives a fuck about marrying a nice girl and making babies at that point? Do you? Huh? Well, don’t say that it wants to survive only to do so – I say, prove it!

To further prove my point, consider humans who don’t want babies. I’m sure scientists have thought about this, and again, there’s a 85.39893% chance I’m talking out my ass about this. But to me, it seems that these folks aren’t interested in propagating their genes.

They are, however, interested in 1 and 3. They want to survive, and they are looking for contentment. You dig?

Similarly, such folk might be willing to die for a cause they believe in – in which case they give up survival for contentment (though shortlived). An example would be somebody dying for ‘their country’ (which is another weird, fluid concept).

If propagation of genes was such a strong imperative, I don’t think it would be swept aside so easily. I mean, c’mon! We’re talking about the goddammed purpose of life here, people! You think that we would be able to sweep it aside so easily if it was ‘the prime directive’?!

Scientists say that many of our desires and actions are designed to ultimately result in reproduction, via impressing females, etc. That seems like a weak argument to me.

I would argue that the strongest imperatives would be the most obvious, and the most powerful. SG is definitely one of these, but so is survival. So is contentment, for humans, at least.

What about other organisms, you ask? Well, think about an organism that can only give birth once in life, or is unable to do so. Being unable to ensure SG, it would have no goals in life, right? But we see that this isn’t the case. Even if the need for SG was absent, the organism would continue to work towards survival, and contentment (seeking pleasure is a trait many organisms share).

I can’t say microorganisms share this need for contentment. But they do seem to strongly desire survival and SG. But I don’t think that weakens my argument. I contend that these organisms have this need absent, because they are not developed enough to seek it.

…and to conclude

I think I might be on to something. Or not. Surprisingly, I wasn’t drunk when I wrote this, though I have trouble believing this myself. Maybe I was dehydrated or something. Anyways, I’m sure somebody will come along and smack some sense into me sometime soon.

Till then I’ll just behave like this post isn’t a crock of shit, and walk around all haughty-like.

It’s not that I didn’t realize that racism existed, but it’s just that I’ve been made acutely aware of it over the past few weeks, or even months. Some of this was due to people I cared about being of the race which was the target of some racist remarks, and at other times, just due to realizations of how deeply divided we as the human race are.

We are so tribal in nature that we are compelled to divide ourselves into different sects. I’ve read that we are capable of treating a maximum of 150 people as ‘tribesmates’. Anybody beyond this number is outside the tribe, and hence, not of particular concern.

The implications of this is that we truly care for only about 150 people. Maybe that’s not accurate – maybe the number’s 1500. Or 15000. But the point is that after a certain degree of separation, we tend to think of people as ‘them’ rather than ‘us’.

For different people, this means different things. For some, it might not make much of a difference. With enough empathy, you’d cry every time you’d hear of anybody’s death or other tragedy. Clearly, this is not so. On the other hand, this might mean that you don’t give a shit if 1.5 million people die in a flood in Cambodia. This, I’m afraid, is closer to the truth.

But more importantly, this leads to other behaviors like racism, dishonesty, etc. After all, it’s easy to cheat somebody at a gas station when you don’t know them that well, and even easier if it’s the first time you’ve met them. But it’s far more difficult if you know and care about that person, like if it’s a friend.

It’s also not difficult to imagine somebody hating a particular race, until they become good friends with somebody of that race. Their being inside their ‘tribe’ forces you to change your view of the world. You have to either wrap (or rather warp) your world-view around them, by thinking “all except XYZ of this particular race are ____”, or to accept that “maybe this race isn’t _____”.

I’ve always wanted to believe that I’m not racist. I’ve never believed that any of the human races is superior to any other. I believe that over time, we evolve differently in different parts of the world, but in a very irrelevant, tiny manner, which leads to absolutely no differences between any two people of different races. Any characteristics we might observe in the current generation of a race is a short-term (a couple of 1000 years maybe) adaptation of that particular race.

I believe in individual superiority – that is the only measure that can have any importance. It doesn’t matter where you came from, who your related to, what color your skin is, what language you speak, what food you eat, what gods you pray to (or don’t), what area of land of the Earth you came from, what your previous generations had to go through, how rich/poor your forefathers were…………….

….all that matters is what you make of yourself.

Of course, I’m using the term ‘superiority’ lightly. I don’t believe that any of us is better than any other. I might be better than you in Football, but I won’t be better than you. There’s a difference.

The title of this post comes from the particular prejudices I know I carry. I feel strongly about certain sets of people. Just observing certain characteristics immediately leads me to conclude that there’s a high possibility of them having certain other undesirable characteristics. A certain style of dressing, might for example, indicate orthodoxy of religion. I do always try and account for exceptions – I don’t assume that my first impression is always true. I let the person prove who they are or aren’t.

But this prejudice might be unfair, considering the burden of proof is on them.

Also, what I view as ‘negative characteristics’ are of course, my opinion, and of relevance to me alone. I don’t pretend to think that anybody else should think that way, or that my way is always the right one.

However, I believe that this is the way it must be. If I assumed the best of everyone, I would be setting myself up for disaster. Trusting a stranger is illogical, and is asking for trouble.

What I don’t do, however, is hate somebody, based on one of these prejudices. If they turn out to be exceptions to my assumptions, I will gladly open my mind to the possibility that I was wrong about them.

As if the post wasn’t bad enough, the comments were just ridiculous! I know my classmate well enough to know that he was probably just mistaken in his viewpoint. But most commentors, it was quite obvious, were just taking advantage of this opportunity to indulge in sexist drivel.

He was posting about ‘feminist bullshit’, and more specifically about a website called Blank Noise set up to combat eve teasing. According to my friend, eve teasing was not a real or common problem. It was just being blown out of proportion by the overzealous media, ‘elders’ and education system. He was apparently a victim of “fear of being teased”. The point he was trying to make was that women were being so over-protected that men were suffering massively as a result.

The ‘feminists’ were playing it up, apparently, to garner attention. I would like to state at this point that I don’t like feminists – or any other -ists. He has ‘never seen an instance of eve teasing in public’. Talking to women, he couldn’t come up with ‘one single first-person experience or be able to quantify it’. What utter bullshit! That’s A-grade horse manure right there!

Besides, what exactly was he trying to prove? That because he hasn’t seen this happening, it doesn’t happen? So I guess ’cause he’s never seen a rape, murder, dowry murder, sati burning, etc., that they’ve never happened in India? He must not have read the newspapers on the day that drunk revelers molested a girl in public near the Gateway of India (how fitting) – 70 men, in a crowd of 1500. Or when a 12 year old mentally handicapped girl was raped in a Mumbai local. India is not safe for women.

But more to the point, I don’t know how he’s never noticed any instances of eve-teasing in public – ’cause I’ve seen plenty. I don’t know if he’s ‘living in a very good society’, or if he’s just in denial. Or worse. I distinctly remember an incident in Kerala, where this and other classmates of mine were discussing a recent newspaper article. The article talked about a woman who an inebriated man ejaculated on in a public bus at night. What disgusted me was the retort that one of these guys made, and other nodded their head to – “She deserved it – what the fuck was she doing out at 8PM alone at night?”. Leaving aside the question of how utterly ridiculous that statement is, gentlemen, please – nobody deserves that. Eve teasing exists. It’s a real problem, it’s nasty.

Unwanted attention
I think I have some idea of where he was coming from. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, let me assume that was under the mistaken impression that him, and his masculinity were under attack. I remember reading about sexual harrassment, and being outraged at what I felt was extremely unfair and biased laws. These laws, I realized, could easily be misused to blame a guy of an offence he didn’t commit. Innocent actions could be misunderstood to be sexual advances. This can be devastating for a guy.

But then it hit me – these were in place to protect women, not punish men. Most women don’t want to slap a fake sexual harassment lawsuit on you. Most women don’t want to falsely accuse you of eve teasing or molestation. The edge-cases where this happens has the same distribution as false accusations of any other nature.

But what does it mean for the horny, red-blooded male and female? Must we now live in a society where we can’t flirt with a girl for fear of being ostracized? Must we now keep our distance and behave like asexual non-men? Do women want this?

Ha ha, snort, snort, that’s funny! Anybody who believes this just doesn’t get it! The only purpose of this is to prevent unwanted attention! If a woman says no, she means NO! Pursuing her, stalking her, molesting her is what the losers do.

I’ve always been a gentleman pervert. I flirt shamelessly with girls. I make crude, lewd jokes, touch them inappropriately, take liberties I shouldn’t. And they love it! They love the attention! Why? ’cause I respect their decision – if she says NO, then it’s over. I move on. But if it’s not, if she finds me attractive, then it’s game on!

Why this seeming hypocrisy? Well, it all goes back to evolutionary biology. I won’t waste time expounding on this, but in a nutshell, we’re all looking for excellent mating partners. If a women feels that a man might make a good mate, ’cause of his sexy genes, she’ll be attracted to him. Ditto for men. The problem arises when a female rejects a man. The man is trying to propagate his genes, so his goal is to have sex with the woman. This can’t happen if she rejects him, now can it? And this leads to all sorts of uncool stuff, like I’ve talked about above. Note that this doesn’t in any way excuse this behavior.

So where does this leave us? I don’t know about you, but it leaves me dejected. I look around, and I feel like there’s a war going on. A war between men and women. And I don’t understand it. There couldn’t be a more beautiful union than a man and woman*. Can’t we all just get along?

*Yeah, ok, that was a bit mushy – fucking move on already!

As I was researching the frameworks available, I was disappointed to note that there seemed to be a gazillion and one frameworks out there, each one of which seemed a likely contender. I wanted to select one of them and get cracking on the project, but I didn’t want to risk choosing one of them, and realizing later that I had made a mistake. This could have been for two reasons:

1. The option I had selected was not good enough: This could be because it was not allowing me to do something I was trying to do, or it was making it much harder to accomplish some goal. There could be some underlying flaw in the option that made it a bad (or totally infeasible) option. It could have failed some of my initial goals (more on this later), or it could have become a bad option due to a changing requirement that I had not foreseen. Real world example:

Problem: I wanted to build a house. I needed to select a building material to construct it with.
Options: Wood, Cardboard, Bricks
Selected option: Wood
Why is it not good enough: Fails one of my primary goals – safety – it catches fire too easily, which is something I hadn’t realized. Or maybe, it’s much harder for me to construct another floor because the wood isn’t strong enough.

2. There was a better option: This, for some reason, is what many people are more afraid of. As I’ll explain in one of the methods I’ve found for solving this problem, this isn’t really that scary a problem. This problem occurs when we realize that a better solution for our problem exists. By having chosen the other option that we did, we can no longer proceed with this one. Real world example:

Problem: Let’s take the previous example – building a house
Options: Wood, Cardboard, Bricks, and another new option on the market – Fiberglass (hey, gimme a break, I’m not in the construction business)
Selected option: Wood
Better option: Fiberglass – after I had gotten halfway through construction, I realized that fiberglass would’ve been a better option. Damn! Since I’ve already chosen wood, I can’t change to fiberglass now. I’ll keep kicking myself about this every time I enter my house!

To defeat these problems, I have developed a simple method that works well. The first step is to ensure that you have defined your goals. Sounds simple, but it’s something that’s quite difficult to do, and can be easily overlooked!

Goals need to be very specific – it doesn’t qualify to say that the building material must be ‘awesome’. Here are some sample goals:
1. The material must be safe
2. The material must be extensible – I should be able to add more floors, drill holes in it, hammer nails in it, etc.
3. The material must be easy to use and work with

Why the heck would I want to do this? U you define your goals, many infeasible options will appear to be plausible solutions.

By defining your goals, you have developed a kind of acid test for the options. You are able to quickly able to measure each one against your goals. You just select the one that satisfies the goals. Simple.

Sometimes, this is not enough. In spite of defining your goals, and refining them again and again, you are still unsure. You are still unable to select from a few of the remaining options.

Ok, now comes the more important part of my method – I call it the Nike approach. Just friggin’ do it!

It’s quite simple: You need to complete your project. Spending months and months of research trying to select the perfect solution doesn’t always work. Why? Because human beings are highly susceptible to suggestions.

You might have formed some preliminary opinions about an option, when some new input makes another option seem more attractive. This might be a colleague praising another option, or bashing your preliminary finalists.

You might have read something in an article somewhere, or some snippet of a conversation between two experts. You might have seen an ad for the other option that was just sexy (don’t underestimate the power of presentation – I account for it in all my decisions).

So where does that leave you? Unsure and slightly confused. This leads you to hover in a state of insecurity about any of the options. You would like to select one, but you’re not quite sure if it’s the one. This is in start contrast to the times when you are immediately able to identify what you want – like the time you wanted the iPod. You didn’t care what other alternatives existed in the market, and you weren’t the slightest bit concerned that you would ever regret your decision. When somebody pointed out a flaw in your decision, your confidence in your selection allowed you to advocate your choice, and argue about its merits. That kind of confidence feels good, doesn’t it? You can see how distant it is from the hesistance we’re talking about.

So what do you do? Of the remaining options, you select the one that your gut tells you to. Keeping aside the beliefs that your subconscious has weighed in many more of the options than your conscious brain realizes, there is another reason for this, which I’ll expand on below.

By selecting an option, you are freeing yourself from paralysis by analysis. This is a state where you are so immersed in the process of making a decision that you never move ahead in the completion of your goals. You can read up on this later (focus, man/woman, focus!).

Once you’ve selected an option, what about the above two conditions (option not good enough/better option)? You don’t care. That’s right – you don’t care. You have done your research. Your option has already shown itself to meet your goals. Any problems that arise will just have to be fought through. You do whatever is necessary to defeat the problems you’ve encountered and move ahead. You will make far more progress this way towards the completion of your goals. Rarely, if ever, will you find that the option you’ve chosen is so bad that you just can’t work with it. In that case, just select the next best option from your research.

Sometimes, though, even after defining your goals, there exist so many options that even after defining your goals, it would take way too long for you to boil down to one option. In this case, you can apply the new method I’ve discovered – the deal breaker.

It’s very simple. The first step is once again, defining your goals. Once you’ve done this, you go sequentially through each of the options, looking for the ‘deal-breaker’. Imagine that you received an annoying phone call from a telemarketer. You’re too polite to just hang-up the phone. What do you do? You look for an excuse. “…sorry, I can’t buy your credit card because I am currenly in jail’”, “I can’t avail of your long-distance calling plan, because I don’t have a phone!”, etc.

You do the same for these options. You pretend that your ideal option is the last one (though we’re just going through these options randomly, or alphabetically, or whatever). So each option, dressed in its best suit, needs to be given an excuse, why “it’s just not the one – it’s not you – it’s me. But can we still be friends?”. This way, you’re not trying to select the option, but reject it. This makes the decision so much easier. As you’re going through the options, some will be stubbornly good – but eventually they’ll falter. One of these will just continue to look perfect. This will eventually be the option you’ll chose! If there’s two or three which satisfy the criteria (more than three? you’ve screwed it up – be meaner!), you apply the Nike method.

The wisdom of my methods might not be immediately apparent, but think about it a bit, and apply it in practice. I’m sure you’ll be singing my praises in no time!

The article talks about research that suggests that ‘multitasking’, the ubiquitous term that has come to mean the ability to perform multiple focus-intensive tasks simultaneously might not be a such a boon after all. You might want to think about removing it from your resume (oh, c’mon, don’t pretend you didn’t). Various studies seem to suggest that humans weren’t meant to work on many tasks, all requiring their attention at the same time.

In fact, I would think it’s not possible to multitask, in the strictest sense. What we’re doing is rapidly focusing on one or the other tasks, switching back and forth between them.

In earlier times, people looked far less favorably at the preponderance to keep flutter from idea to idea, from thought to thought (from the article):

In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” To Chesterfield, singular focus was not merely a practical way to structure one’s time; it was a mark of intelligence. “This steady and undissipated attention to one object, is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.”

The following study, mentioned in the article, is categorized as ‘unlikely’, in my books. It does, however deserve a mention:

In 2005, the BBC reported on a research study, funded by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London, that found, “Workers distracted by e-mail and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.” The psychologist who led the study called this new “infomania” a serious threat to workplace productivity.

What these suggest is that ‘infomania’ is the condition of not being able to focus on one idea, one task to the exclusion of all others at a time, while monomania, being able to doggedly stick to one line of thought, is the enabler of genius.

The article further argues that our brains are not wired to be able to multitask. Forcing them to do so forces them to adapt (or rather adjust) in ways that are detrimental. It affects our memory and recollection, and by not allowing us to solve as many problems as attacking it with a single-focus would, intelligence.

In day-to-day life, I have seen many examples that seem to support these conclusions. We all know the guy who gets pumped full of enthusiasm at the start of a new project, only to have all enthusiasm fall away as they face the prospect of steady, constant application. Haven’t you noticed those times when you seemed to be so busy, but would at the end of the day wonder, what exactly it was, you had accomplished?

We’ve all sat down to finish that project, only to have our concentrations broken by the ringing phone, the barking dog, the yelling mom, the ringing doorbell. Conversely, we’ve had periods of super-productivity, where we’ve been able to blast away through pure, focused energy. I remember the days in college when I’d be able to learn more in 2 hours of focused study, having woken up at 4 AM, than I had in the weeks prior (really). I’d have done jack-shit studying earlier. I wouldn’t be able to focus on anything, everything would take a major effort to remember and understand. But early in the morning, I was a sponge. Whatever I read, I would remember. I would comprehend all that I read, I would be able to skim through pages (I wonder if that’s a contradiction of the idea), and absorb at a staggering rate. I never fully understood why. Now it makes perfect sense.

From the article,

In one recent study, Russell Poldrack, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that “multitasking adversely affects how you learn. Even if you learn while multitasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily.” His research demonstrates that people use different areas of the brain for learning and storing new information when they are distracted: brain scans of people who are distracted or multitasking show activity in the striatum, a region of the brain involved in learning new skills; brain scans of people who are not distracted show activity in the hippocampus, a region involved in storing and recalling information. Discussing his research on National Public Radio recently, Poldrack warned, “We have to be aware that there is a cost to the way that our society is changing, that humans are not built to work this way. We’re really built to focus. And when we sort of force ourselves to multitask, we’re driving ourselves to perhaps be less efficient in the long run even though it sometimes feels like we’re being more efficient.”

Bingo.

So is the key to being more productive just being able to filter out noise? Being able to ignore the barrage of noise (emails, phone calls, colleagues), while prioritizing and focusing on one task?