Time whizzes by and I, I write of glimpses I steal

Thursday, July 28, 2011

That's a spin

According to this article in Rediff, Breivik was a Christian fundamentalist who wrote in his 1500 page manifesto that he was inspired by the Knights Templar, a 12th century armed Christian movement with a history of battles against the Muslims to save Europe. This should not be confused with the Hindutva ideology, writes an RSS member. RSS, for the uninitiated, is the armed Hindu movement with a history of battles against the Muslims to save India. Clearly, they are as different as day and night.

In related news, crows are white and milk is black.
By the way,
"killing innocents is reprehensible in strongest possible words. But the attempts to link it to Hindutva movement are also equally reprehensible"
He could have removed the word "equally" and still would have been an enormous douchebag.

And just to prove that Hindutva is not ideologically similar to the Norwegian, the first commenter, a Vishnu Sharma helpfully writes, Brevik's anger is understanable but his actions were premature.

Night and day, I say. Completely different.

Well! That's a spin that would bamboozle even Sachin.

Update: The author of the article led me to believe that sensationalist newspapers were trying to link Hindutva with Breivik based on passing references to the state of India. This is what Breivik actually wrote in his manifesto about the Hindutva movement

It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible. Our goals are more or less identical.

The PCCTS, Knights Templar support the Sanatana Dharma movements and Indian nationalists in general.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Don't mess with John Stuart Mill

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the pig are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their side of the question.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Unselfish v Selfish

We humans are not selfish and all rules and laws made with the assumption that we are basically selfish should be done away with. This was the argument put forward by an article in the Harvard Business Review called 'The Unselfish Gene'. I am not adequately qualified nor did I pay sufficient notice to this article to competently critique it. But I always thought that 'Selfish gene' by Dawkins (and the title is a play on that) was very clear on one thing: He was not calling humans selfish. I mean, the whole idea of the book was that genes were selfish and they would do just about anything to promote their best interests even if said interests were not favourable to the human who possesses them. Human selfishness in so much as they are caused by the genes are eminently alterable. Altruism and generosity are cultivable traits.

Why then would some noted intellectual heavyweight declare that Dawkins was wrong and that we are unselfish?

Because context matters.

In Harvard Business Review, the unselfishness of humans as proven by study X, survey Y and thought experiment Z is irrefutable evidence that it is time to de-regulate the markets. Banks are good; Businesses are kind. We don't need the government telling us to curtail predatory lending or not increase charges on credit cards. We are UNSELFISH. Global financial crisis was caused by a few bad apples. We are all intrinsically good people and we can police ourselves. Don't burden us with rules and regulations.

Say it with me, "Financial regulations are so 80s"