A world where all is free
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
 
Good Pittance - Fundamental disconnects
Hyper sat gazing at the plumbing works under a mobile phone company. He was suffering from a mixture of depression and confusion. His intentions had been good, to bring an element of critical review in this dark town. He had selected a particularly favourable spot which allowed a large crowd to gather in discussion. He had chosen fairly interesting topics. But the crowd had just not been receptive. The 12 sessions so far had been disasters, or at best, lukewarm.

He also missed FM's presence.

I must not get exasperated, he said to himself. The creatures here have never been exposed to something like this. Its just a matter of time, and once I have a faitfhul following, it should get easier.

What he did not take into account, which he may have if FM were around, was that it is difficult to form a faithful following when most creatures living in underground sewers have lifespans lasting a day or two, or at most a few weeks, or at the very outer limit, a few months. It was obvious that he would see new faces every single day.

As he sat ruminating, his mind drifted towards the 3rd topic he had selected as part of this series. The subject was reservations in India and the particular debate was does reservation make sense?

He felt he suffered from a fundamental disconnect with the logic of the concept and the related protests. He ran through his thoughts in his mind.

Reservation, most skeptics argue, is a politically motivated tool. It is driven by the political desire to win elections. The disconnect is this - aren't elections won 0n the basis of majority votes and not minority votes? In which case, politicians should actually favour majority reservations. Which doesn't seem to be the case.

The deeper argument, then, must be one or some of the following (which FM had pointed out when they had discussed this 20 years back)

1. The majority of the country does not actually vote when it comes to it while minority groups are far more diligent at this

2. Majority votes are governed by very complex mechanisms which politicians do not understand (like economy, roads, globalisation etc.) while minority votes are easier to garner with easier to appreciate grassroots issues (like hunger and unemplyment)

3. Majority votes are roughly equally split between the leading parties, and it is the minority votes that actually make the difference between winning and losing

4. It is easier to break up the voting population into contiguous groups that vote in a single direction. In other words, the returns per unit effort are much higher.

Hyper ran these through this head, and also noted that FM was not aware of the numbers that would support any of the above arguments, and thus only qualified as intuitive hypotheses.

All this confused him even further till he screamed out loud - someone please shed some light on this!!!
Thursday, May 04, 2006
 
Good Pittance - But it wasn't going to be easy
There was another flaw with Hyper's plan. Sewage dwelling creatures aren't well known for their capacity for deep intelletual debate.

Consider, for instance, the following episode in the life of Charles MMDCXXIV (a member of the sewagus centipedus species). Charles MMDCXXIV was an energetic youth and was often reprimanded by his dad Charles MMDCXXIII for his anti-social behaviour. A typical conversation between the two would go like this

Charles MMDCXXIII (furious): INGAT SPEENY WAKJAZAKHOO LEEM??

Charles MMDCXXIV (uncertain of the cause of fury): plak stlak makl noboo

Charles MMDCXXIII (Now bubbling to the point of bursting): GLOGGY SPlAT PLANKTON?? MAKAWEEKEE SOCKKO DRUAKA MEEENO??

Charles MMDCXXIV (still defending himself, when he should have kept quiet): peepa sattt.... oogon tak... glap...

*SPANk* Ow! noogoo glap...

*SPANk* Ow! noogoo gl...

*SPANk* Ow! noogoo...
and so on.

As you can see, not a very intelligent conversation at all. In fact, this was a case of complete misunderstanding because CJ (Charles junior - we'll call him that for convenience) was really not up to any mischief. In fact he was a very clean person, but had a nose for danger. In this particular case he had been exploring narrow tunnels and found himself in the commode of the biggest celebrity in the city, a man whose private collection of beatles had created mass hysteria. (the beatles eventually broke up, of course).

CJ was obviously very excited with his discovery and came running back home to announce this to his 97,000 siblings. He bumped into CS (the senior guy, obviously), unfortunately. The above conversation took place at this point and roughly translates into the following (grammatical erros reproduced for honest representation)

CS (furious): SO WHERE YOU THINK YOU BEEN ALL DAY

CJ (uncertain of the cause of fury): been doing pot, thats all

CS (Now bubbling to the point of bursting): POTTING AGAIN, YOUNG FELLA?? YOU NOT UNDERSTANDING A THING I SAYING??

CJ (still defending himself, when he should have kept quiet): but I went really high this time... and saw stars.. dad

*SPANk* Ow! but dad...

*SPANk* Ow! but da...

*SPANk* Ow! but...
and so on

Evidently, Hyper's plans were not going to be easy to execute. And now that FM was not on his side, he felt he had to plan very carefully.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
 
Good Pittance - where it all started
Frequency Modulation was discussing the futility of discussing Armenian politics with his good buddy Hyperinflation when magma became too hot and burst out into the open. This was not a good thing for FM and Hyper since both of them died. It was even worse for Terminal Velocity since FM owed him a large sum of money.

The souls of FM and Hyper realised this eventually but could not find a way out unlike magma. Hey Hyper, said FM, I'm stuck! Me too, replied Hyper. And then there was silence because they weren't used to talking too much.

(If there would have been a human there at the time, he would not have realised this silence because he would not have realised that the two souls were talking before the silence because souls don't talk the way humans do.)

Hyper soon had a doubt. Hey FM, he asked, which way's up? FM was the more astute of the two and should have known the answer, but he did not.

Curious, he said, we should be able to tell, not by sight since we are stuck without reference, but by weight, and I could have sworn reading about an experiment by this guy who claimed the human soul weighs about 20 g. Perhaps he was wrong, after all. And besides, it is quite evident in here that, if you think about it, the eventual outcome of going in the wrong direction, that is, down, and not up, would be to emerge on the other side of the planet, that is, there really is no down or up after all.

Hyper was very impressed with FM's analysis and offered all his savings in return for this deep insight, which did not mount to much since he had not paid attention to his investments which he found far too confusing.

In due course, the bodies rotted and were gnawed at by various underground creatures and bacteria. The bones slowly turned to dust and finally there was nothing left but a family of very satisfied rodents. The souls, in this manner escaped and headed outwards, and after encountering exciting territory somewhere deep inside the earth's mantle, emerged in an underground sewage system.

That did not matter too much since they could not smell very well and they had become rather fond of creepy crawly underground creatures over their many years attached to the rotting bodies. They played around in the muck for years together, and mastered all manners of underground sports and arts between them.

Hyper contemplated introducing a form of literature in this new land. Hyper was a sensitive soul, and he felt this place could do with a bit of introspection and critical thought. He thought the best way would be to call for a townhall, raise a topic for discussion and allow his creepy crawly friends to react. He would then document the discussion and eventually after many such events, he would have volumes of critically
thought out, well, thoughts.

FM was not impressed and insisted this project was doomed to failure because he did not believe in volumes of arguments. He supported the existence of an elegant universe and believed there was a fundamental truth to it all, a simple and logical fundamental truth, which can be written on the back of a matchbox, and can be used to explain everything, even the things that Hyper wanted to introspect about. This truth, then, would make introspection redundant and a waste of time.

Hyper did not understand any of the above and went ahead with his plan in any case. He decided to call his book - Reviews from Deep Within: Souls Speak (With Support From a Million Other Creatures).
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