Enlighten Your Vaginae

I saw this eyebrow raising advertisement today trying to sell fairness cream for vaginas or, so corrects my spellchecker, vaginae. What will these ingenious Indians think of next? Was going to blog about it but seems Indi has beat me to it. Also, the topic has caused some debate among the more figuratively enlightened as well, refer this hilarious post by Jezebel*.

Anyway, this led me down a train of thought that I’ve often climbed on before, but rarely sat inside until the last stop. Which was ‘Makeup and Fashion’. I heard somewhere that lipstick is mostly red because it mimics the color of a woman’s lips when she is feeling amorous. The same with mascara. And let’s not get started on that dusky affect your eye-shadow is supposed to produce. A lot of the fashion industry is aimed at beautifying a woman’s body, making it more appealing and sexually attractive to men/other women.

Seems to me that these things have accelerated the objectification of women, sexually or otherwise. If so, many women who champion freedom from objectification have failed to recognize their attachment to the very things that chain them. Is it plausible to expect general society to respect you for your intellect and personality when the first thing thrust at them are your aesthetic credentials? The mechanism should belie logic.

If you’re a militant feminist that walks around with no shirt and copious amounts of chest hair, you’re still not proving anything. Surely, a woman can preserve her dignity and grace while still refusing to be judged predominantly by her looks alone, and still progress independently in the world?

Because otherwise, we must all only be sexually charged animals. And fairness cream for ‘vaginae’ the next item in a long line of products (presumably originating in the sex industry) that seek to transform women into socially acceptable porn stars.

Hmmm…

*if the link doesn’t work, you can access the cached page here

Dirty Pretty Things

Just watched Dirty Pretty Things.

It depicts a seedier side of London. A London where illegal immigrants sell their kidneys for a forged passport. The operations are butcheries, and some survive, most don’t.

The operations manager, lets call him the villain, justifies the whole thing because he is in the business of making people happy. The immigrant gets a passport so he is happy. The villain sells the kidney for ten thousand pounds so he is happy and a dying rich person get’s a new kidney and a new lease on life so they are happy.

When it comes down to it, it’s all just plain economics. The villain is exploiting a ready market, he is an intermediary. Intermediaries spring up wherever there is a demand for a product and a ready supply. He connects the buyer with the seller, and finishes the deal. Of course he is a villain because he uses sub-standard medical procedures, unqualified doctors and plainly exploits his suppliers. This is why many die.

He doesn’t use proper equipment and qualified doctors because he is a criminal. But also because he has to operate outside the system. And the system does not give health services to those outside its limits, because what it can’t see doesn’t exist. Illegal organ transplants are a criminal operation, never mind that most of its victims participate voluntarily, because they are desperate.

The desperate immigrants run away from home due to poverty or war. The countries they are running away from are often run by corrupt regimes where people have no rights. Banana republics exploited for their natural resources by their ruling elites and behind the scenes, multinational corporations with the implicit support of the very countries towards which the desperate immigrants run to.

So who is to blame? Where does the moral responsibility rest? Does morality even have a role? Morality here is outsourced, everyone is technically happy. Except those at the bottom who are just technically desperate. They are reaped like so many harvests.

The movie is great. Its poignant and, unlike the trailer, doesn’t have an annoying deep bass voice telling you how many people live in London.

For the Intellectulolz

The Fight of the Century is a cool video that depicts a rap battle between John Maynard Keynes and FA Hayek. Arguably the most influential guys in economics in the last century. Of course, they had opposing views otherwise this wouldn’t be a rap battle it would be a fist bumping gangland bop in caddies, or whatever.

Good for econ noobs and econ geeks alike. And for people in between, like me. Good for the lolz also i think. But not as lol worthy as Darth Vader Vs. Hitler say, but thats just slap dash humor. This here my good sir is intellectulolz. I reserve the coinage on that one. thankyou.

Keynes is famously known as the man who ended the Great Depression. His policies have somewhat stop started the Great Recession (these names i tellya) as well, but only barely. And many argue that the great recession wasn’t all that great as it was stupid. And the slacking rate of job creation makes them wonder if it has even ended as they say.

Hayek is the geek of the schoolyard who gets the last laugh (or the last lolz) on this one. He argues that u need to look at things from the bottom up and not top down. Advocates the free reign of markets and the surfing of the boom and bust economic cycle. You can’t let prices function if you bail out the failures.

Anyway, the above was a very disfigured narrative. I was just thinking that it was time for a blog post, then i saw this video courtesy Tim Harford (http://twitter.com/timharford). Or it could have been the other way about. Anyway ’tis pretty epic.

Now, enough talking. Here..

Press

I can feel the press press push of the oceans surrounding me. I am a landmass pressed upwards by a volcano erupting in my depths, except it is a slow eruption, building up layers upon layers of lava that pressurized and pushed the little island that is me upwards and upwards and upwards. I am an island, this man is an island except i am a man no more.

I miss running. The freedom might be superficial but it is still freedom. In those few fleeting moments when there is acid burning in your veins powering you on, when you thought that you couldn’t run any more but you ran anyway, when your legs seem to move like some otherworldly steam engine is powering them through a dimensional gateway; all links to your pain receptors removed, when your lungs are beyond bursting point, bursting point is a dream. You can go on, but you are afraid that your body will collapse without your knowledge.

In those fleeting moments you live, and you are introduced to something called exhilaration. The Runner’s High.

Mount Beach is lazy with sunset. Kids, mothers, touch rugby players flash past like you are watching some dream sequence in a movie. All you can see is that boat you are aiming for banked on the beach. Like some beast trapped from the smooth mobility that the waters offer, so close yet so far. Your feet hardly touch the ground. You hardly feel the sand. Your face is screwed up probably. Your eyes like a madman’s. Rushing, fuzz, fizz, swoosh.

I need release. I am not built for confinement, I am only miserable in confinement. Man must roam free. Physically, intellectually, emotionally. He  must roam free so that his internal compass can align to that which his soul naturally knows it belongs to. Yet i am afraid. Petty fears plague. I know they  are petty but i know that pettiness creates dependencies. Or dependencies are based on pettiness. I am not being coherent any longer.

Running is about goals, about sacrifice about giving up for beliefs. Its about shrugging off the friction that life gives you with its insignificant distractions, running is about freeing your soul so that it can race home. race to its end, to its beginning. Running. I want to run to my death.

Someone wise said that a poem is never finished, it is only abandoned. This may not be a poem but it feels like one. and even though i could go on. I will abandon this here.

Or wait, i must tell you about the shot. The shot that goes off in your head. A bullet in your brain. You shoot and you are off. The start. The point. The beginning. The initiation of the run. And that my friend, must come from your own will. Your coherent mind must release you into incoherence. Your being must release your soul. And that is where the shot comes in. Ok i’m done.

The Common Good (and other Fairy Tales)

Following is a brief synopsis of the history of economics as i understand it together with a subjective viewpoint on its inherently oppressive nature. This viewpoint as written below does not necessarily reflect my personal opinion on economics, it is simply a viewpoint, that should stand alone in its own right.

-The Raj

Since industrialization humans have focussed on getting more efficient, becoming more profitable. I shouldn’t say humans in this regard, for it is mostly the capitalists who expound such thought processes into practical application. Economics after all, cannot be taken away from the self interest of its proponents, and when brought into the fray of politics, self interest largely depends on who is in power. And, money being tantamount to nearly everything in entering politics, most modern democracies flout the interests of capitalism over ‘what is good for the masses’. Of course this is cleverly disguised, more so from the politicians themselves, but GDP is not a measure of quality of life. Getting richer as a country, with it’s complete wealth distributed according to the laws of the Pareto Principle, is questionable as a purpose of being. Most modern economies can be highlighted as examples.

The prevailing ‘what is good for the powerful is good for the economy’ philosophy can be easily illustrated with simple look at the history of economics. Initial feudal establishments (which were centered around the absolute power of the landowning class and its default omni-ownership of all capital) crumbled with the increase of trade and the appearance of ‘marketplaces’. This only exacerbated with colonialism and eventually led to the Merchant class surpassing in wealth the landowning overlords of feudalistic society. Eventually, the reign of Merchants was the norm.

Mercantilism

‘Mercantilism’ was their philosophy. Mercanltilists were of the opinion that to prosper, a nation must sell more than it buys. In other words, its exports must exceed its  imports. This kind of thinking will seem absurd in the modern day world with interdependencies among nations causing more deficits than surpluses. A system like that cannot survive, for the simple reason that were every country in the world to follow identical princples, trade would simply halt! leading to eventual collapse of the system. As it happened Mercantilism survived for a long while, primarily due to cheap resources readily available from colonized nations and also by oppression of its own country’s peasant class, and economies in that day were controlled more by guilds of merchants that functioned more like cartels; monopolizing trade and commanding prices. Not very good for the quality of life of your average peasant, I would say.

Moving on, the rise of capitalism happened when the industrialists got into the game. They were a class of people who believed in the use of capital to control the arena of trade. They would supply capital to small scale artisans and contract merchants to sell them. This practice formed the basis of what would become the modern company.

Capitalism

‘Capitalism’ full blown, had names like the Dutch and British East India Companies as its flag bearers.  They allowed joint stock ownership and modern share markets found their origin here. They used their vast capital and trade monopolies to import cheap and sell dear. Making their owners’ wealth increase to previously unimagined proportions. Along with the emergence of capitalism, the seeds of the destruction of mercantilism were sown. Some advantage was gained to the common man with the abolition of protectionist measures like monopolies. And free market systems ensured competitive prices but along with its advantages the market economy also increased the sense of work ethic. Previously idyllic lives were now to be spent slaving at factories and workplaces eking out a living.

This hasn’t changed much. In the world of globalization and international trade, corporate interest is the main driving force behind ‘growth’. Obama treads lightly with BP because Obama possibly knows who has a fatal but light grip on his balls. The ecosystem and the small people making a living off it are not really significant. And this is not really a one off example. Trade barriers, free markets, international trade agreements, multinationals etc are all ‘good for growth’ but not really good for the increment of the quality of life of the small man. At least, such increment does not make the betterment of the common good its priority. Leading us to question the validity of the whole system, and our perceptions of human nature.

The Last Laffer

This here is the Laffer Curve. It depicts the relationship between the rate of taxes and government revenue. According to the L-curve, the government wouldn’t earn any revenue at 0% taxes, which is obvious. But it also states that at 100% taxes there wouldn’t be any revenue either, because then there would essentially be no incentive for people to earn money.

Mo Motor Vehicles

The level of taxes on motor vehicles had far exceeded the optimum level signified by the peak of the diagram displayed above. Therefore, theoretically, cutting taxes should stimulate imports and thereby increase revenue. The government has reduced their taxation of motor vehicles with this in mind. However it remains to be seen whether they will decide if the current level of taxes is, in fact, the optimum level of taxes as presented by the Laffer curve. They might jiggle the amounts up and down a bit in the future to get closer to that optimum level, but this presents a fair bit of practical difficulties i am told.

Needs and Wants

The government needs the money to balance out the budget deficit and they need the tax reforms to simplify our tax system. Both are requirements of the IMF for the release of the 3rd tranche of bailout money. I don’t know if these are a part of an overall change in philosophy oriented towards a free market economy, but a part of me hopes so. Problem is, we can probably expect higher inflation to hit us soon. And the dearth of good roads and too many vehicles will probably soon result in more of the dreaded T word on a daily basis. Which will mean we will burn more fuel. Which will mean that demand for fuel will rise, which will mean that the government could easily raise the price of petrol again.

I’m probably just a bit miffed ‘cos i can’t buy a good car going cheap. Im saddled with one right now and know that it’s market value will probably drop. The less money i can get for my existing car, the more fresh cash i’ll need for a new one. There are winners and losers in this game and i seem to have come out in the middle.

Hunting by Proxy

I have often wondered why we work. Having to work for a living may make us fell part of Civilization, a part of the world. It may make us feel like we’re Contributing to Society but all it does is make us animals in the end. We’re all just animals.

Dreams when i was 18 imagined myself at 25 wearing Prada suits, working in London, climbing the corporate ladder. I’d roll with catwalk models in BMWs and be a young prodigy set to become CEO at 30.

Looking back at me when i was 18, and comparing him to me now. The only difference is that i think differently. people don’t look at what they can do for the world, they only look at what the world can do for them.

In economics, the Invisible Hand does just this. It takes self interest and makes something that is for the collective good; like business. Businesses start out of self interest but through providing access to cheaper goods and services, they make lives better. If a system works properly then self interest helps the collective whole, at least, it doesn’t hinder it.

That is the way of nature anyway, the lion hunts to feed, the deer dies to preserve enough grassland for the rest of the herd. Are freemarkets natural systems then?  I guess they are as close to natural as we can get, barring certain abominations like banks. But are human systems ever completely natural?

This train of thought takes me to thoughts of political systems and the Sri Lankan one in particular. Democracy is meant to be a market system. Where demand dictates supply. But its inefficiencies make it the worst market system imaginable, and not only because there is such a time lag between matching the needs of the people  with governments or because the accuracy of matching needs depends so much on the intelligence and morals of the people elected, its a system where companies control consumers; an enforced monopoly of sorts. Politically, we are barely into the Mercantilist era.

 I suppose in Sri Lanka democracy and governance is not looked upon as a market system at all. Maybe thats a problem. But thats an interesting train of thought to follow up on, maybe later.

Back to a company. Which is a money making machine, working in one makes you a cog in the machine, in a sense. I am however a bit tired of being that cog for now, and need to experience something more hands on. Working here has made me feel a little hazy. There is like a mist that has settled over my mind that refuses to dissipate.

All art is quite clueless…

Island Dreamin’  by T

What is art? every now and then i find myself posing such questions of a dangerously philosophical nature. The danger being that people will get that blank filmy look in their eyes and try to edge away from me in a sideways direction when i speak thus. This is why i have a blog.

‘All art is quite useless’ said Oscar Wilde, presumably right before he wrote ‘A Picture of Dorian Gray’. Where, as anyone who has read it or watched the movie (pfft, you watched the movie?!) will know, a work of art did come extremely in handy to a certain Mr. Dorain Gray. But to the rest of us who do not immerse ourselves in black magic, what is the point of art?

Take this rather fetching painting. This painting reminds me of Jungle Beach back in Galle. So i sit and stare at it. But the colors are wrong. The lines are too mathematically verticle. Water is only that color in swimming pools. In ways, this painting is as far away from the Jungle Beach iv seen as the concepts of integrity are to most modern Sri Lankan politicians.

But in other ways it makes a sense of familiarity wash over me. The greenery, the small stretch of sand caught between steep cliff and deep sea. The rock and cosy pathways leading down to the beach from a cut in the mountains. I can remember  it all quite well when looking at this painting.

Its strange. So art draws me to the real while displaying only a depiction of it. Art is an exaction of cousciousness on what we usually define as reality. Art, tightly defined, is not art. Art exists in that fringe at the edge of your eyes. And like a man wandering the forests in the night looking out for lions (this might seem like a dubious metaphor till you watch ‘Man Vs. Wild; African Savannah’), your best chances of seeing art is by observing it from the edge of your vision so to speak. Looking at it directly and trying to define it through your rational axioms of reasoning will only render art meaningless.

I think art is undefinable, and that is mostly how you define it. Nature and reality as we see it is probably only a product of our minds. And nature as it exists objectively is probably colored so much by our subjective perceptions of it as to render it almost completely distorted.

Take a fly. How it sees the world is how you would see it of you looked through a kaliedascope all your life. Dogs, are attuned to hearing different things. Lizards can see in two different directions at the same time, probably creating some depth perception problems but still. These creatures’ senses are only adapted to their needs. We humans would be arrogant to assume we percieve objective reality in its pure form.

Take a fly. Now imagine you’re the fly.

Same Same, But Different

Lincoln, by Dali.

In our confused drive to believe in ‘equality’ we have confused equality with similarity. In our efforts to treat everyone and everything as equals, we have tried to make things easy by ignoring the differences and focussing on the similarities, to the exclusion of those differences almost completely.

We are not homogenous. we are a mix of several rich and diverse things. Black people, brown people, women, men,  Tamils, Sinhalese, Muslims, Christians, fair people, dark people, rich people, poor people, selfish people, rude people, beggars, executives etc. At times these differences really don’t mean anything, but at times they do.

Secularism is a nice concept. It requires people to focus on commonalities when working together, and requires them to keep their differences to themselves. But people interact on all sorts of levels. And beliefs are not just limited to organized religion. And politics are the manifestation of our worldviews, which are based on our beliefs. Then secularism becomes a very porous border no?

So we’re not all the same. But we’re not all that different either. We’re on that dynamic gray line that shifts between white and black on a constant basis. Individual humans are capable of identifying with this, and acting on it. We have no problem of accepting the fact that everyone we meet needs to be treated subtly differently, and we do so everyday. The problem happens when we get together.

Humans collectively are far less intelligent that humans alone. When we’re together, the instinct is to generalize. Societies make decisions based on generalizations, as opposed to individual humans. This is of course probably because the impacts of these decisions affect society as a whole as opposed to indivuduals. But in doing so, society has created a world that is still too rigid for individualism to survive beyond a set non-criminal boundary.

In making these collective decisions there is far too much left unsaid. The need is to keep things simple. And this is understood. There is no way of conveying, amalgamating and transmitting all the collective nuances of mind a group of people will possess all at the same time. Our skills of communication still restricts a vast portion of our thoughts, perceptions and ideas to the realm of the inexplicable.

So we know that the world is colored grey but we have no choice but to look at it in terms of black and white. We work together and we are forced to alter our perception of reality in order to try to make a system that does the best things possible for the most amount of people it can.

That is a sad consequence of being human. Can technology help? Cos evolution didn’t. We’ve always been the same throughout history; the winners still write it.

Untopia

Designing the future; Shinter

TIME Magazine has got an interesting section called 10 ideas for the next 10 years on this weeks issue. It features some interesting ideas dealing with thoughts ranging from why watching Kubrick’s 2001 – A space Odyssey is depressing (I’m always surprised how people attribute the work to Kubrick instead of Clarke), how and why white America will become a minority group, how an increasing amount of people are turning their backs on the rat race to lead more chilled out lives  to how TV will save the world.

Personally i am partial to the one before that last one. Utopic or starkly authoritarian views of the future have always fascinated me; not because they are a contradiction, but simply because utopia never seems to exist in the future unless iron-hard control is exercised throughout the system. Orwell’s 1984 portrays the bad side of it, while Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World shows the psychotic side of it. Iain M. Banks though comes out with a wholly agreeable outlook for the future of humans that i wouldnt mind freezing my brain for another few hundred thousand years to be a part of.

But just like Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001 gave us a nice ride through fantasy, Iain M. Banks’s future controlled by super benevolent, super(artificially)intelligent yet independent Minds dedicated to the running of the known galaxy while ensuring all their flesh and blood species led completely pampered lives may seem the stuff of fairy tales come year 1,000,000; our computers can still seriously mess our lives up. But on scales vastly less devious than HALs.

People look at the future and see magic. But then in reality it’s just probably the same us out there with a fancier phone, wearing goofier clothes and holding atrocious moral compasses.