Questioning age and wisdom..

 I'm not sure that age brings wisdom. I see more evil, fights, wars, and killings by older people than by young people!

(one comment made during all the wars happening around the world)

On Human History

 

Elites, Poor and sharing

(Shared by a professor of pharmacology in one of the Grand Rounds)

"One life lesson I learned from the pharma industry is that the proportion of price drop is independently associated with anything's use in life among the elite and poor.  Elites try to control things but fear sharing, and keep things at a high value so low-income people can't reach them. They are even afraid of sharing things among themselves. As soon as anything in life, like a drug, becomes generic, its price drops quickly. I found that people experiencing poverty are more intent to share and crave less material things. It's the most bizarre paradox of life. I don't mean that a person should stay poor, but there is a line where the human mind loses its tendency to connect with other humans and seek the welfare of other humans - and that's the biggest curve ball of life."

On "Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel"

 Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel has been a riveting yet hefty read.

 It may not be the best text on West vs. the Rest, but at least I did not see racist undertones while trying to understand his problematization of the oversimplified history.

He claims that he was looking for the answers to why history evolved differently on different continents over the last 13 thousand years. He apparently shunned the common racist response of some people/races to be superior to others. His thesis was that the answer had little to do with people and everything to do with their surroundings.

He/his argument/books did become quite controversial. He has been accused of having masked his biological determinism or historical racism in the garb of natural disposition and distribution of resources. However, biology has been used to explain a lot of other world dynamics: gender relations, patriarchy/matriarchy, sexuality, success, wealth, and cognition.

The "Jared Diamond is a racist" argument suggests that environmental, ecological, and geographical factors led to the West's colonization of the rest, ignoring the determinants of this. Diamond's argument is seen as racist, as it overlooks the terrible actions of Europeans and their unfavorable ideologies.

European descendants can find comfort in the thought that those before them weren't so bad after all while the Whites may find comfort in the thought of no longer having to deal with the horrors of invasion, slavery, and genocide.

But JD (though sometimes extends it too far) does not say any of that. He says that the different historical paths of different countries are not due to racial superiority but to environmental factors. He thinks geographical traits and the availability of plants and animals that can be tamed are two of the most important factors that determine how societies grow. He challenges the idea that racial differences alone are to blame for past events and stresses how important it is to understand these factors to fix world problems of inequality.

Insaan

 

One Mind

 

Haj-e-Akbar

 

Bilinguals

 

Smell of poop and humanity

 America is an amazing country. When you live here, you realize what an interesting melting pot this country is of immigrants worldwide. I have interacted and made friends with people from many countries, religions, cultures, colors, and languages.

Somebody said it so well yesterday: "In the end, the smell of all poops is the same." :)

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Karen Armstrong says

 

Mathematical language

 

Interesting observation

 Someone posted this on Facebook, and I liked it.

I’ve noticed that people who are kind to animals are usually kind to their fellow humans.

Tolstoy says