I have witnessed a highly prevalent tendency in the Indian society to treat economically weak sections with utmost contempt. I am not sure whether it came about from the callousness generated from intense competition to survive among hundreds of millions or the social division based on caste systems.
What I do know, is that, it is completely unnecessary and against human rights. It is not only offensive to the victim, but also degrading to the offender. I humbly request all fellow human beings to learn to respect everyone around them. Just learn to say 'please' and 'thank you' to your servants, waiters , security guards etc. Inquire about their well being and, if possible, try to help them to the best of your abilities. You would be surprised at the improvement in the quality of your service as well as how much better you start feeling yourself. If you are into spirituality at all, you would agree the all the positive thoughts and actions bear positive fruits.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Sanctity of information
I do not know whether holocaust happened or not. I have heard enough from the holocaust deniers as well as from them,who consider this piece in the "history" as the most evil propaganda by an individual. I choose not to not give any references simply because there is no means for me to verify them as being genuine !
I have no idea whether to believe the scientists who warn us about the threats of global warming or equally "reputed" group of people who provide theories and "proofs" against it.
And recently I watched this video which, if true, could change the face of physics and eventually human life.
The point I guess, is that I have constantly found a need to be able to verify all the information that I receive from various sources. Sometimes I wonder if there is such a thing as "true" information, or it's just point of views of certain individuals. I would like to believe the former. In any case, I think there is a need to have all the references ( and references to references ) all at one place. Wikipedia is doing this to some extent but once I follow the references in the wikipedia, I am again entering the realms of uncertainty. And again, Wiki shows me the current majority accepted version of a topic and not the absolute truth.
I guess what I wish for, is tags. on all the references on the web indicating the usefulness/general acceptability/peer reviews and transparency on who is editing these tags.
By the way checkout Tim Berner Lee's new brain child: sharing databases instead of documents.
http://linkeddata.org/
I have no idea whether to believe the scientists who warn us about the threats of global warming or equally "reputed" group of people who provide theories and "proofs" against it.
And recently I watched this video which, if true, could change the face of physics and eventually human life.
The point I guess, is that I have constantly found a need to be able to verify all the information that I receive from various sources. Sometimes I wonder if there is such a thing as "true" information, or it's just point of views of certain individuals. I would like to believe the former. In any case, I think there is a need to have all the references ( and references to references ) all at one place. Wikipedia is doing this to some extent but once I follow the references in the wikipedia, I am again entering the realms of uncertainty. And again, Wiki shows me the current majority accepted version of a topic and not the absolute truth.
I guess what I wish for, is tags. on all the references on the web indicating the usefulness/general acceptability/peer reviews and transparency on who is editing these tags.
By the way checkout Tim Berner Lee's new brain child: sharing databases instead of documents.
http://linkeddata.org/
A different world
A friend of mine had a matrix like vision for a new world: what if all the existing human knowledge could be fed into a new born, and so much time and effort could be saved in the preliminary/college education and be utilized to enhance the technology at much faster pace. My intuition advises against this scenario. The reasons being following:
1. Humans have difficulty in debunking a theory they know to be true. For eg: it was very difficult for people to accept that world was not indeed flat and newton's theories of gravitation could be a mere approximation of more exhaustive relativistic equations. Often, people who are not all knowing are more likely to diverge and create new ideas, thus leaving us with more options to chose those useful to us.
2. There is simply too much conflicting information out there, which if not impossible to entangle, is a gigantic task.
At some point of time if all the knowledge is in human hands, he could either chose to live happily thereafter or die of boredom !
I would also like to comment on the sanctity of information available to us but in another post.
1. Humans have difficulty in debunking a theory they know to be true. For eg: it was very difficult for people to accept that world was not indeed flat and newton's theories of gravitation could be a mere approximation of more exhaustive relativistic equations. Often, people who are not all knowing are more likely to diverge and create new ideas, thus leaving us with more options to chose those useful to us.
2. There is simply too much conflicting information out there, which if not impossible to entangle, is a gigantic task.
At some point of time if all the knowledge is in human hands, he could either chose to live happily thereafter or die of boredom !
I would also like to comment on the sanctity of information available to us but in another post.
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