29 Jan 2022
covid19
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skype
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video-calls
Video calls are ubiquitous. Skype and its modern counterparts were the go-to tool for connecting
people who were not in the same physical space. In the era when travel was possible, convenient, and
exciting, these tools were stopgap solutions; to be employed until the time that you could
refill your “physical presence” account balance with people. Then, COVID19. Everyone was stuck at
home. Travel became impossible. Video calls became the only way to meet some people. At work, the
number of people that I interact with on a daily basis whom I have never met in real life has gone
up from 0 in March 2020 to 5 this past week. I don’t think my experience is an outlier. The
necessity of using this tool could not be escaped; neither could the feeling of tiredness that would
always follow its use. What is the source of this tiredness?
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16 Jan 2022
emotions
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social-media
When Facebook came on the scene, the most attractive features on the platform for me were photo
albums and life events. These two features in combination gave the user the ability to build a
timeline of their life. Every trip that you go on, place that you visit, and dinner that you eat
can be documented for the present and archived for the future. The photos and events were arranged
as milestones that the user chose to retain when they told their story. The digitized nature of
this data enabled the creation of works that were out of reach for the ordinary scrapbooker or the
amateur video editor: The personalized Facebook “Lookback” videos, which were generated for
Facebook’s 10th anniversary, were the biggest “proof-of-concept” of a world which was digitizing at
a fast pace. I feel that Facebook was at “peak utility” back then. Nostalgia was the currency that
the platform traded in effortlessly. Product managers at Facebook intuitively understood the value
that they were creating in their users’ lives. Looking at the Lookback video is not like looking
back at photo albums from a decade ago because in the latter experience there is no
curation. However, Facebook’s usage is on the decline. Platforms that focus on creating Anxiety in
their users’ minds are on the rise. Did something fundamental change?
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31 Dec 2021
monthly
·
reading
·
series
There is no specific theme for this month’s recommendation list. It is an assortment of the articles
I read over the past year which had one thing in common: I wanted more people to read them and
decide what they thought about the underlying institutions and people that these articles
described. So, we have two articles about the tennis world: one about an athlete within the world
and another about the incentive structure of the sport; one article about a non-contrarian CEO with
some interesting ideas about running companies that he does not divulge, and another one about a
politician with new realizations that helped him confirm 3 nominees to the US Supreme Court even
though the confirmation of a single Supreme Court nominee was hailed as a big achievement just a few
years ago on the TV Show, West Wing.
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26 Dec 2021
book-review
·
complex
·
philosophy
Descartes has a gift for reasoning that I will not attempt to summarize in the few paragraphs of
this review. Descartes’ essay is worth reading if you have ever wondered about the philosophy behind
his saying “I think, therefore I am.” It is worth reading if you have a few hours to yourself and
you want to think. It is challenging, and some of the philosophy went over my head. Despite that,
I got a basic understanding of what he was trying to do. He attempts to reason from scratch to prove
the existence of the “soul” and of “God,” for he believes that if he is able to prove their
existence, then even the most irreligious person would follow his reasoning and become religious. I
was not completely convinced by his logic in this regard, with regard to his proof of God’s
existence. But I was convinced about the reasoning behind his quote connecting doubting, thinking
and existence. In this review, I have explained both Descartes’ lines of reasoning and the
doubts that arose within me when I followed these lines “without prejudice”.
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19 Dec 2021
economy
·
finance
·
india
The National Monetisation Pipeline was a policy announced by the BJP government in India in
August 2021. This policy was not widely covered in any of the national newspapers, and there were no
policy analyses that went deeper than the headline numbers highlighted by the government. While some
articles started coming out in September with more details about the government’s expectations, I
couldn’t find any criticism of the government’s approach. A tired comparison to Australia’s asset
monetisation plan was everywhere, but this did nothing but scratch the surface. (The same comparison
was repeated in multiple publications including The Print and India Today.) This post is a summary
of my understanding of the policy after reading some detailed coverage in the September 27, 2021
issue of the India Today magazine.
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11 Dec 2021
monthly
·
reading
·
series
The theme for November’s list is Nature. Movies starting with Jurassic Park have tried to show
humans that Nature’s powers are wielded at the most uncomfortable times for human beings and that
there is really no consideration for us. This does not stop us from wanting to change the natural
course. And this forceful change in nature’s course that we effect through our actions, our
scientific understanding of fundamentals, our engineering acumen to build huge structures, and our
knack for planning long, complex adventures with far-fetched goals in mind is the theme of this
month’s recommendation list. It includes one article about a ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal,
a team of people who want to set a world-record and thus circle the globe 1.5 times in their
pursuit, and the story of a government’s need to do data-driven policy gone haywire.
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02 Nov 2021
covid19
·
monthly
·
reading
·
series
I have tried to stay away from COVID-19 on this blog. Most people are writing nearly constantly
about it and I don’t have many original takes on this topic. But this month, I reverted back to a
way-of-life that was typical for me before the pandemic began. I traveled to another city to meet
relatives; I went on a vacation; I traveled to some places in the city that I am in; I went out to
restaurants and dined-in. These experiences signal a return to normalcy which seemed unlikely in
March 2020, 18 months ago. These experiences also shined light on a change within myself: I have
gotten used to not being among strangers. Going back to a previous lifestyle, seeing and listening
to strangers again has been an interesting return to normal. (I am glad that the “new normal” was
transient.) So, this month’s theme is a receding pandemic. I look back at some of the articles
which I read at various milestones during the pandemic, starting from the beginning of the pandemic
in Japan last year, through the emergence of the vaccines, and right up to the most recent article
about the long-term effects of this crisis.
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30 Oct 2021
climate-change
·
global
·
governments
·
policy
If you haven’t caught the climate change fever yet, you almost certainly will catch it in the next
few weeks. Even a cursory glance of the news will familiarize you with COP26. As the climate
conference approaches, Western publications have gone all-in and bet that the conference will
generate a large amount of news. They are right about this, the conference is definitely going to be
a hotbed of some stunning news stories. Some countries might announce new targets, others might go
back on their existing targets or not commit to anything new, etc. Every change in policy will be
followed extremely closely and dissected and analyzed from every possible angle. Only one question
will remain unanswered: What is the point of all this hoopla?
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24 Oct 2021
america
·
democracy
·
politics
The American political system is strange. It has three branches; the Executive, Congress and the
Judiciary. Judges within the judiciary are appointed by the Executive with approval from
Congress. The President is the highest official in the Executive branch and elected directly by the
people. And all members of Congress are also directly elected. All the lawmaking power lies with
Congress and it is generally very hard to repeal laws which have already been enacted. On the
other hand, the Executive branch is a fickle-minded body where the current President’s whims and
fancies are the primary deciding force. Treaties are signed by the Executive branch. And wars begin
and end at the Executive branch’s will. This makes America an unreliable republic to have any kind
of long-term agreement with.
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30 Sep 2021
monthly
·
reading
·
series
This month’s theme is the Chinese state. Lately, there has been a lot of news out of China. As Xi
Jinping guides the China story towards the inevitable conclusion of overtaking the US economy in
size, he has started announcing reforms that look unthinkable to many but deal with the key
underlying issues in late-stage capitalism. Rising tuition fees and the unsustainable costs of
tutoring are a key issue in India. Coaching classes that train students for the entrance exams of
leading engineering and medical colleges cost about INR 50,000 per annum, which is a third of the
annual per-capita income of India. China’s crackdown to make these coaching classes non-profits is
the most refreshing reform that I have seen imposed on this industry in the past decade. Another
industry that has been on the rise in India is online gaming and online gambling. The rise of this
industry has made strange cases unusually frequent. (These cases remain the exception and not the
norm.) China’s recent regulation on gaming time for minors is an ambitious step. I am not convinced
about its utility; but I can see that drastic changes are required to curb Big Tech’s unfettered
access to data collection and the Chinese state does not balk under pressure from Big Tech
lobbyists. This alone is encouraging to me and I hope that it convinces democratic governments to
try something in their own jurisdiction.
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