Towards a better nation

Readers, today’s blog is about several things that are wrong with the current crop of youth in our country and perhaps many parts of the world at large. It addresses misplaced expectations,  freebies, socialism and reservation.

Culture of Entitlement

To begin with today India’s affirmative action programs are designed to benefit certain castes.  Since this practise has continued well past the initially stipulated ten year horizon, the beneficiaries have begun to look at reservation as a “Right” and not a “Benefit”.  In my opinion every Citizen’s Charter of “Rights” must be associated with a corresponding call for Duty.  This seems like common sense, but then one may ask, why were Rights granted by prior Governments without demands being placed on Duties? The root cause of this is Poor Leadership at the core of Government. Promises and Lies made by such leaders in the past have resulted in a dangerous culture of wrongfully placed Entitlement.  

Several laws like the ineffective Food Security bill, and many other rights (which were perhaps never intended to be fulfilled) were introduced by weak leaders in the past. Youth today may and can ask questions like:

I am born in this country, where is my food? (Who moved my Cheese)

Socialist policies of the past have set a dangerous precedent and several people are forgetting that the poor farmer toils day and night for an entire season before his crop is harvested. He invests in fertiliser, relies on the vagaries of the monsoon and then gets a paltry minimum supported price for his crop. Do sweat to make your own bread!

I have just graduated, where is my world class job?

The entrepreneur has to literally move the world in winning business in a globally competitive environment, he risks losing his capital, his reputation and ruining his family life before making you a job offer.  So remind me again, why do you think you are entitled to a job? Even if you do not have skills/education/knowledge or experience and a bad attitude? Again these are not attributes of ALL youth but large sections of them. We need to remind them that:

The World Does not owe you a thing! Work for your bread butter and Jam, or else you will soon run out of other people's money!

The Bitter Fruits of Laziness

So one may ask, what is the result of setting falsely high expectations? Poor leaders do this as they somehow want to stay popular, even without showing an iota of performance as leaders. Youth who are led on this path will lack feedback from these poor leaders. In the absence of this feedback, they will develop a misplaced sense of entitlement. But the globalised world can be a cruel place for such youth and they will be in for a rude shock once they step out of the country or deal with Global players. Such an awakening to harsh reality can have several adverse effects on a young mind.

I want to clarify that what I have said is true “At all levels” certainly not at entry levels alone. The equation that :

Graduation= Job = Success is completely untrue in a globalised economy.

Competence =Job or

competence and perseverance = Success are more apt equations now.

So let us all work hard and smart towards turning young lives around for the better! And let this serve as some Enlightenment!

Regards
Milind Thombre
(Comments welcome)

Knowledge To The Rescue

Folks today's  post is about affirmative action (Reservation) in India and worldwide as well and some facts and my thoughts around it. This post examines the effects this policy has had on the Indian population in particular and globally in general. We will try to address this issue with data and algorithms and not passion as there is a great deal of distortion of this issue and there is a lot of baggage that many people bring to the table when this issue is discussed. I believe looking at data is the best way to make an informed decision and solve this important Social Engineering problem.

Background

At the stroke of the midnight hour as India awoke to light and freedom certain communities were considered backward and a young India decided to do something for her children. Dr. Ambedkar, a visionary leader of this community introduced the policy of reservation in Education to ameliorate these children of India. Being a visionary he naturally saw what the long term effects of this policy would be and warned that if this welfare policy was continued for more than 10 years the people would behave like parasites, Also he was strictly for reservation in education alone, not jobs promotions and such. These were introduced subsequently by weak and undeserving leaders who wanted to somehow keep winning elections by enticing the greed in the masses in exchange for votes.

Affirmative Action, The Broken Greedy Algorithm

Many still argue that Affirmative Action is a good thing. And even if it comes at the cost of the Forward Classes(Castes) it is worth it as it ensures Social Justice. I am not going to counter this argument with emotion but with facts and Algorithms. This is a classic case of a Greedy Algorithm that breaks down in the long term. A greedy algorithm assumes that what is right locally (reservation) would hold true globally(Social Justice) and that this algorithm of doling out engineering/medical seats would indeed uplift the masses long term. This does not happen for simple reasons rooted in Human Psychology. 

Imagine that you are a young couple if I told you: "Don't worry about your kids, they will have Food Security and a Right to a great Education, all of them I guarantee will become Doctors if they so wish". 

Q. How many children would you want to have?

A. As many as possible.

Now Imagine if I told you, " Your kids will need to be extremely bright to even get a decent education, you may need to pay your entire life savings as donation to get a seat in a Medical College and even after getting educated your kids may not get jobs. 

Q. How many children would you want to have?

A. 1 at most.

What is happening is a Silent genocide of the classes. The babies are not being born at all and the population of the classes is on the decline. Whereas the exact opposite is happening to  the masses. However resources (wealth) being limited, the inheritance algorithm is creating poorer and poorer masses and richer and richer Classes! The fact that there are fewer classes and that they are rich is leading the greedy leaders to use this as an excuse to increase the quota, which unfortunately is having the exact opposite effect.

I hope they see the light soon!

Psychology: Top and Bottom

The laws of nature say that if somebody is on the top somebody else will be at the bottom. This is true of society as well. The probability of one being on the top of the whole world is 1/6 billion and the denominator keeps rising, so we are all below someone or something. We need to learn some basic human psychology here. The people who consider themselves at the bottom, well that is all of us at varying levels, need to cultivate Humility in my opinion. Humility evokes Sympathy from those on top and makes them want to help us. However if we cultivate Arrogance, it evokes more arrogance and Aggression from the person in power, and we all know where that leads.

Fight or Flight

The classes are faced with great adversity at present in India and Adversity evokes the classic response. Fight or Flight (Immigration). How do we fight this system if we are an embattled minority in a large Democracy?

Flight is an easy solution, you can immigrate to a new country and thrive there.

However some of us remain here and decide to fight the system. Personally, I use knowledge to fight as I believe the Pen is Mightier than the Sword. And so I wrote this post. I hope to have provoked some thought!

Regards
Milind Thombre

(Comments Welcome)