Commonwealth Games will Not be a Dud - a Prediction

Please do not think the above title is written sarcastically, or that what follows is some kind of satire. No, rather quite to the contrary, I write the following in earnest.

I have for quite some time been skeptical of motives and methods of those who work for the Indian media, especially the national media, which includes English dailies, magazines and English and Hindi news channels, and the web sites managed by them (to whose works I get exposed; my exposure of the regional media is very little). I have highlighted the reason for this utter lack of trust in many posts of mine (click on the individual links to view them; they will open in a new window/tab):

1. Why the Indian National Media appears Anti-Hindu

2. Fine balance between lack of creativity and its excess.

3. So many inconsistencies in news reporting of "two lady doctors killing a rape victim's baby in Raigad"!

4. These are not Diwali Firecrackers, please!

5. S.I.T. Back and Enjoy Pop-Corny NewsXXX

6. Spinning Yarns to Make Undies on TV

In last 3 to 4 months, the national media has come down heavily in its criticism of the Commonwealth Games, 2010 (click) to be held in Delhi. The media has been able to convince vast majority of people that the games are going to be a dud, that many things are going to fall at the games venue, people will get injured and that large-scale mismanagement would become manifest. In fact, many have enthusiastically declared the event as "national shame" quite in advance. I have gathered that the impression among most Indians I get to interact with is that after the games get over, India would become a laughing stock in the world owing to its inability to organize events at such large scale. Of course, all that is apart from the many allegations and a some circumstantial evidence of corruption. But I am contending that except for the allegations of corruption, rest all will be proved untrue, meaning, in all likelihood, after the games are over, lot of Indians would be left with a feeling of wonder as they would be awe-struck by the grandeur and meticulousness of planning.

So, this begs the question, why the media had chosen to pursue the Games the way they did? Allegations had been flowing thick and fast, especially that of corruption with random figures thrown around as the "estimate" of the scale of corruption - from Rs. 20,000 crore to Rs. 70,000 crore. Of course, just like all other figures that media throws up, these must be attributed to some "sources", who would be well, "noted" or "eminent" or "well-placed" or "inside", etc.

Now, assuming my contention that games would not be a grand failure as anticipated by, and projected by the media, then what was the motive behind media's projecting things thus? What all purposes did it serve?

Of course, one might contend that the media acting in good faith, was only bringing to light all the corruption involved ("waterproof" umbrella, exotic tissue, etc). But good faith would have involved merely highlighting the issues related to corruption, not the other things which would convince people that the games' execution is going to be pathetic. Moreover, good faith would have also entailed providing some reasonable support for their estimate of the scale of corruption involved.

My following analysis largely draws from a comment I had posted on Atanu Dey's blog post - The Games Built on a Cesspool (click). My premise (outlined in the blog post - 'Why the Indian National Media appears Anti-Hindu' liked above) is that the national media works in a fashion that largely benefits the Nehru-Gandhi family (and not necessarily the Congress Party as some might believe; the difference is subtle, but not something very difficult to appreciate). Though we all are reacting violently in public fora at this sort of alleged corruption, Indians are actually subconsciously quite alright with corruption. We have come to terms with corruption in every walk of our life, and we also know that the larger the scale of an event, greater would be the corruption. What hardly matters to common people is the scale of corruption as very few can actually appreciate the impact a certain amount of money siphoned off could have on the nation's economy or infrastructure. To give an example very few people actually work out in their minds, that with certain amount of money alleged to be involved in corruption, how many hospitals, schools, bridges, etc. could have been built. But what matters more is the area in which corruption is alleged – so corruption in ‘games’ is quite alright, but not in defense deals [Bangaru Laxman and Jaya Jaitley had received much flak, despite virtually zero-evidence and for a much paltry sum, perhaps because it was associated with 'defense' - on which lives of so many people depend], education schemes, medical care, religious organizations, etc. But what amuses me is that figures of corruption in organization of CWG of various kinds are being floated around, with almost no evidence, and that nobody is asking for any evidence! It has become a fair game to make a guess of scale of corruption and throw around numbers, just like the number of dead Muslims in Gujarat riots of 2002. Any random figure supported with right kind of rhetoric to support it would be bought as 'true'!

a. So how does this help the Nehru-Gandhi family?

1. It appears that Kalmadi might have not been the first choice of the family for CWG organization but they could not prevent his heading the body, or perhaps he must have not been paying his haftaa – protection money, on which I had done a song parody (click). The mounting media pressure is a way to make him pay up. They (Nehru-Gandhi family) are using similar tactic against A. Raja [someone had pointed out that despite some of the most important ministries that Congress has, the most profiting ones like the Railways and Telecommunications are not with them, so they desperately want them, and this media pressure is again an attempt towards that].

2. The apparently incidental, but perhaps, the true target of this attack is Sheila Dikshit (click). I had the opportunity to live in Delhi for around 10 months, and I thought her governance is good [in that how much Delhi had improved over last decade - both in terms of infrastructure and one vital area, viz., crime control]. Of course I am not taking into consideration the amount of inflow of funds. But whatever be the case, she is one of the very few leaders in the Congress stable who does not live in the shadows of the family. Meaning, whether it be her criticism or praise, she has been seen as independent by many. I had heard of some instance of ‘rebellion’ by few Congress politicians against her a few years back, and someone had pointed out that it was engineered by the Gandhi family to weaken her position within the party. Of course that was also a conjecture, but I could see that pattern in many of the family’s and media’s actions [I am also aware of the flaw of this manner of thinking - I can go on citing incidents that seem to support my speculation, with disregard for other incidents that contradict it, but let me proceed with that technique]. And of course, the Gandhi family’s larger challenge, if one sees carefully, is not so much to keep the BJP and other parties out of power, but to keep others in the Congress itself from usurping their position! It would be naive to believe that all other Congress politicians are taken in by the fair skin of the Gandhis, and that they are bereft of any political ambition. But the fact that the supremacy of the family in the party is still unchallenged to this unimaginable degree only points to the possibility that something in working of the Congress party must make it excessively unyielding to show any ambition, or perhaps in some way, even perilous [three young and (electorally) 'promising' Congress leaders had died in the last decade in freak accidents]. Sheila Dikshit’s son is also a member of Parliament – another reason to be sure to keep her position weak.

b. Apart from the above factors, the ways in which this coverage is helping the media and the family is:

1. Distracting people from other events of greater gravity – hoisting of Pakistani flag in Kashmir, riots in Deganga in West Bengal (in which the ‘Pioneer’ reports that one or more persons had died), an unconfirmed burning of Shiva Temple in Kashmir (and the usual – rising food prices, farmer suicides, etc.). The treachery of Man Mohan Singh in the Nuclear Liability Bill is again something the CWG coverage had helped push largely under the carpet. Has anyone wondered, what degree of cheapness it was to have inserted “and” and “intent” as caveats in the bill? I am not going into the practical aspects of the deal (e.g., if having stringent criteria would make the deal so scary for the suppliers that they will decline to do business). Here was an incident, where despite the high amount of scrutiny, and possibly very grave eventual consequences, the Congress Party tried to hoodwink the entire nation! And what is interesting is that in response to the accusation of our prime minister being a puppet of the family, one of the shining examples of his independence that is advanced is his personal involvement in the Indian nuclear deal program!!! Compared to him, Shashi Tharoor surely got a very raw deal, whereas Dr. Singh escaped unscathed as a ‘clean’ politician despite much larger stakes. Neat, no? Why? Simply because, all along the prime example of corruption and deception that people will think of for quite some time to come will be Kalmaidi of the CWG infamy!

2. Using this as an instance, the media can always claim – “See, we critique the Congress also”! But what works here is the apparent lack of proximity of Kalmadi with the Gandhis, and also the fact that majority are going to think in terms of “games toh aakhir games hi hote hain” [Games are after all just that - games!]. So despite its extremely vicious coverage, the impression formed about the CWG does not make the family at all look bad as compared to say Babri demolition and the death of Muslims in Gujarat riots [Look carefully, on TV news, besides every allegation of corruption or broken tile or fallen bridge, the portrait would be of Kalmadi, and not someone from the family].

c. But, what will the media say after the games are over and (if) they are proved wrong with regard to grand failure of the games that they had been predicting for quite some time?

Nothing much! They will still continue to point out minor flaws of the games for a few days to come, or even start praising the game as if nothing had happened! Moreover, very few people will wonder why the CWG’s success would have proved them and the media wrong! Of course, few people might go into denial as to how come their confidence that the CWG would fail miserably could have been misplaced. But in the entire occurrence, almost no one would pause to wonder as to how come they were misled so convincingly by the media about the CWG's imminent failure, simply because, “games toh aakhir games hi hote hain” and the media would anyway start distracting their patrons with other such trivialities!

Of course, my entire analysis depends on CWG’s moderate to spectacular success, so unlike, Mani Shankar Ayyer, I am praying desperately for their success! ;) To hell with nation’s welfare and atheism! :P

The reason I decided to put up a prediction instead of doing a post-games analysis is to serve my narcissism. If my prediction proves correct, I could gloat - "see, I understand the media so well, all my conspiracy theories with regard to how media works are correct, etc, etc", but of course my theories also stand a chance of being proved wrong, in which I would have to eat a humble pie and throw a shoe at...

Why the Indian National Media appears Anti-Hindu

I had conceived the following post in response to a question posed by Bhagwad Jal Park in the comments section of his post - Quran Burning – A book is not a person (click).

I reproduce the pertinent portion of his question here:

"As far as the media goes, I'd like to dig a little deeper. If you say that they're biased (and I'm not sure one way or the other about this), why are they biased? Is it because (as a lot of right winger claim) there is a conspiracy between the government, media etc to put Hindus down, or is it because of sheer incompetence, or because people don't want to hear anything else, or some other reason?"

It has been my policy to carry forward these kind of discussions in my other blog - 'Freewheeling Discussions (Personal)', but as this was something I was anyway planning to blog on and also because understanding what follows would not require knowing a background context, I decide to post this here as an independent blog post.

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Despite being an atheist, being not at all a fan of the fuzzy concept of 'Hindutva', not finding anything wrong with Sonia Gandhi's being born in Italy, and nor being the one who would want India to 'rule the world' as a superpower, I have always felt that the national media appears to be partial towards what it terms the 'minorities' (which largely includes the Muslims, the Christians and the 'lower' castes) and has an anti-BJP bent. The latter, some people perceive as their being anti-Hindu. This partiality towards Muslims comes in form of making them look victimized more than they would otherwise be, and also trying to cover up, in the process, their harms done to the Hindus. But I have realized that this perception of media bias is seen as "right wing paranoia" by those who seem to share other beliefs (or non-beliefs) with me - atheism, finding Hindutva silly, etc. A fine specimen of use of this nomenclature could be found here - The Spectacular Achievements of Right Wing Propaganda......... (click).

Though since long I have found a palpable bias in the national media (in favor of minorities, which might make it look like anti-Hindu, but need not really be that way), I have not been able to conclude a firm driving force behind such bias.

I will lay down mere speculations for what could be the reasons (and I am sure that they would sound as silly to many as what "lot of other right-wingers say", but then anyway let me put across my points) [whatever points I make here are applicable largely to the national media, and not necessarily the local media, which have their own individual biases depending what incentives they have and their political affiliations; it should not come as a surprise that media has so much power to influence that many south Indian news channels are 'openly' owned by politicians]:

1. The essential struggle for control over media is not so much between the Hindus and other communities, but is between the Nehru-Gandhi family v/s politicians from the Congress and other parties. So, you will see that even minor good things that the two prominent members of this family do, would be highlighted, whereas any of their failures would be attributed to the respective ministries. Hence, primarily the prominent media houses work against the rivals of the Nehru Gandhi family, be it from the Congress party or some other.

Examples:

a. Sonia Gandhi has never been interviewed on occasion of any Maoist attack or other collective failures of the government (e.g., rising food prices), but her interview had been broadcast with Barkha Dutt even when the Women's reservation bill was just passed in the Rajya Sabha [it is yet to be passed as a law, so what was the celebration about?].

b. The media house that has done the greatest damage to the repute of rivals of the NG-family has as editor, Tarun Tejpal, who had this - Mrs Gandhi And Her Extra God (click) - to say. Apart from an element of fawning, there is clear indication of desire to bring in religion in matters of administration, when one would assume that politics and winning election are not about such silly things as what the attributes of certain deities are.

c. The manner in which Rahul Gandhi's trip to Mumbai in wake of Shiv Sena threat to Shahrukh Khan was covered by national news channels. One of the motives could be cheap sensationalism, but I have not noticed any other politician getting that kind of coverage when the fact is many prominent politicians keep on moving in and out of Mumbai. Even his symbolism/gimmickry (you choose) of withdrawing money from an ATM was covered with much enthusiasm. Contrast that with Narendra Modi, who, in Pune (a city in Maharashtra, largely filled with Maharashtrians) had asked as to why despite having a Maharashtrian president would the people of Maharashtra want a Maharashtrian prime minister. That was a more daring and sensible thing to say than what Rahul Gandhi had done, but hardly any TV network had covered the latter. The news had perhaps appeared in the Indian Express, but I am unable to find the link. Will update when I am able to find it.

d. The manner in which all the major news channels had floated around the news that the SIT had 'summoned' Narendra Modi in context of March 21. And then when he did not turn up at the SIT office on that day (as it was a Sunday and as basically no such summon had been issued) he was trounced by the news channels accusing him of being arrogant enough to not respect the 'summons' of a body instituted by the SC. Later it was revealed that the SIT, being a non-judicial body, did not even have the authority to issue 'summons' (which would have to be issued under some Criminal Procedures Code - CrPC, I don't remember the exact section, perhaps, 62). My understanding is that firstly no such date was determined, yet the TV crew outside the Gandhinagar SIT office had shouted into their mics that Modi had defied the SC and some had gone on to say that he was afraid, as he was guilty. And secondly it appears that, later he had been interrogated as (an expert) witness as he was the CM at the time of riots, and not as an accused - an impression which the media had given. I have two options to choose from to explain this kind of lapse by all major news channels - either it was sheer carelessness or that it was a concerted attempt to malign Modi. Considering the fact that major news channels (NDTV 24x7, TimesNOW, News X, CNN-IBN) had done the same, it is difficult that all of them would have been careless at the same time over exactly the same issue. So, to me the second option seems lot more plausible.

2. Funding from several sources. This might sound the most laughable, but again it is a mere speculation and much weaker than the above explanation. The reason I think so, is because there are innumerable news channels in India, and unlike entertainment channels which can cater to widely disparate kinds of tastes by having completely different programming, news channels show essentially the same news. So, my belief is the 'number of eye balls' must be getting significantly divided among all the news channels. In light of this fact, how attractive do the advertisers find news channels? I again assume, not much. In face of which what sustains the news channels? I am not a finances person, but I had learned that NDTV had posted losses in more than one financial quarters. Yet, the cosmetic quality of their presentation has not significantly deteriorated. I posit that keeping employed cameramen, reporters, drivers, news anchors, paying guests for appearances, and all of this in multiple cities and towns must be too expensive an affair. Other than advertising, what incentive do the owners have to keep the channels running? How do they get monetarily compensated? So, perhaps they get foreign funding to insert PoV and to distort news. Of course, this funding could be, but need not be foreign, it could come from several sources within India too. Some could be political parties, movie celebrities, industrialists, etc.

Example: Mass media: masses of money? (click)

3. Creating sensationalism. One thing the media does is to present story in a very partisan manner. It need not be because of some kind of institutional bias, but simply to make the stories sensationalist. Owing to competition, it becomes imperative that the patrons are hooked to the news. This requires that in any story, an easy-to-recognize 'good' and 'evil' are presented so that people are not bogged down by dry facts. Moreover, the advantage of this approach is that most people would like to identify with the 'good' in the story, demonizing the 'bad' in the process. It has to be remembered that news media, apart from competing with each other are also competing with entertainment channels, FM radio, networking sites, etc. If the patrons do not feel an emotional connect with the story, they would stop following news, which would further harm them financially. So by meddling with facts, the media manage to create a pure evil v/s good aspects in their story.

Examples:

a. So many inconsistencies in news reporting of "two lady doctors killing a rape victim's baby in Raigad"! (click) - a post from my blog dissecting how it is possible to dish out news shoddily and yet make majority of people fall for it (you would be amazed on counting the number of comments and reading their content on the ToI article).

b. These are not Diwali Firecrackers, please! (click) - another post from my blog, where I point out that important issues like success of Pokhran tests were discussed like gossip magazines would, without providing a shred of evidence. My suspicion is, again only to create sensationalism. To gain further clarity on the issue, please do read my responses to Stupidosaur.

c. The Nirupama Pathak case. Even before the autopsy results were announced, her mother had been implicated and made a villain in the entire saga by the media. One of the police officers of Koderma district was shown giving impressive interviews. Along with all this, her boyfriend, who had got her pregnant (of course, guessing that it was not a case of rape but consensual sex) was being shown as some kind of hero. Then, suddenly it was revealed next day that her boyfriend had also been questioned as a suspect. A few days later the news came that the pillow cover (on which saliva stains would remain as it was a suspected case of smothering) and bedsheets had not been inspected. Later it was revealed that the AIIMS, Delhi faculty had felt that the autopsy had been conducted in a very shoddy fashion. Contrast this with the fact that immediately in the aftermath of Nirupama's death, her friends and teacher had been interviewed, who had made stupid statements to the tune of "she was a strong girl, she could not have committed suicide (so must have been killed by the parents - a very grave insinuation)". I don't remember the exact details, but is seems the media had bungled up big-time. So, now there are no follow up news to the best of my knowledge on this. But the reputation of an entire family was tarnished. It was definitely unprofessional and shoddy. There might have not been a larger ulterior motive, but the attempt to spice up the story ("how could parents kill the daughter"-kind) was definitely there despite the lack of evidence to conclude the same.

4. A reason speculated (click) by Atanu Dey:

"If a journalist writing in English wants to be quoted by foreign publications, then he or she has to appeal to the biases of the foreigners and reinforce their prejudices. Otherwise, the foreign press would not touch it. The more shrill a journalist is in denouncing anything that remotely hints at Indian ethos, culture, or pride, the more likely he or she is to get invited to give talks at US universities and other goodies. The term for this phenomenon is "being a house nigger.""

Of course, I might be questioned as to "how I would be sure that the foreign media would want to hear bad things about India?", but remember, this is just one of the speculated reasons for the manner in which some of the journalists behave.

But till now I have, at best, only demonstrated that there the media resorts to sensationalism, unethical behavior and perhaps institutional bias. But I have yet not addressed why it might seem anti-Hindu.

As I pointed out in point 1 above, it caters to the Nehru-Gandhi family, for the simple reason that it has the deepest pockets of all the political entities with pan-India presence. Meaning, even some of the other South Indian politicians might also have as much or deeper pockets, but at least as of now they do not have any need to have opinion modified at a national level.

So, why would the Congress want to make seem Hindus bad?

I think the Congress does not have any incentive for making Hindus look bad. This looking bad of Hindus is merely incidental. For this the demographics and the resulting constituencies of India are to be considered. Muslims, it is said, tend to vote en bloc. To ensure this they have to be constantly fed with the idea that they are being persecuted and discriminated against (this is partly true also that certain fraction of Hindus discriminate against them, and so do people from other religions, but this discrimination is not Muslim-specific, but an outcome of bigotry that birth-related affiliations result in). But to ensure that they vote en bloc for the Congress and not some other party, the only viable option to vote for has to be demonized. That viable option happens to be the BJP. But how can a BJP government directly go and harm the Muslims? So, it has to be shown as shielding those wanting to hurt Muslims. Of course, in terms of endearing itself to the Muslim constituency, the BJP had hurt its prospects by associating with or perhaps even bringing up the Ram Temple-issue. So, in the process it also needs to be shown there exist sizable number of Hindus who are "out there to get the Muslims". This is what incidentally (and not as a matter of primary intention) makes the Hindus look 'bad'. It should not be surprising then that all the major communalist riots seem to be happening only in the BJP-ruled states (Gujarat & Kandhamal), but none seem to be happening in non-BJP ruled states (Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, Miraj in Maharashtra). But obviously, one has to also create an impression that the BJP & some affiliated bodies, like the RSS and the VHP actively support this violence. How can this impression be created? By projecting riots between Hindus and some other community to be selective persecution of the 'minority'. This impression can again be only created by largely omitting the violence committed against the Hindus. This, I believe, is the reason that the deaths of around 200 Hindus that had occurred in post-Godhra riots in Gujarat are hardly given any coverage. Because, if once that part is also given the prominence it deserves, then people will start questioning the theory that "the BJP and Narendra Modi had organized a pogrom against Muslims", for surely, 200 Hindus would not be killed by the people who also killed Muslims.

Now, apply the same approach with regard to perceived persecution of other minorities, and the impression we are bound to get is one of BJP and associated organizations being anti-Muslim and anti-'lower caste'.

But why does the Congress instead not try to appeal to all the Hindus, instead of trying to appeal to the minorities? After all the Hindus are the 80% of the population!

Traditionally, the Congress has been perceived to be secular/pro-Muslim, and they cannot change that image overnight. Because it would be risky to lose 20% of 'sure-shot' voter share [because Muslims tend to vote en bloc]. But on the other hand, Hindus are fragmented. To make them rally around one party as one constituency is very difficult. The rivalries between various castes and sub-castes of the Hindu community are so deep that they are almost as strong as the Hindu-Muslim rivalry. The BJP had, perhaps, with some success been able to unite the Hindu constituency and that is why it came to power earlier (or perhaps, Indians could also have been frustrated with the Congress rule). Simply because Congress' formula is tried and tested, they are reluctant to try new tactics. But in the 1990's the BJP were the underdogs, they had nothing to lose by trying to unite the Hindus into one single constituency, and somehow they partly succeeded (and could form the government). Because had they tried the same Congress formula of cozying up to the 'minorities', then why would the voter instead not vote for the 'original' (Congress), instead!

Of course, my entire analysis above is like the 'Strings theory' - it might make intuitive sense, but I have no way to prove it empirically/statistically. But I continue to go by it simply, because no other single hypotheses in isolation can explain the aberrant behavior of the media in the instances I cited above.

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To summarize: I hope I have been able to accomplish/show the following (not necessarily to everyone's conviction):

1. Cite instances of unprofessional/biased conduct by the media.

2. Enumerate and somewhat explain the motives and incentives behind the same.

3. That the Congress benefits from current anti-BJP bent of the media (and hence, perhaps provides the much needed incentive for the media to remain thus).

4. In the process of being anti-BJP, the media ends up demonizing Hindus in the eyes of the minorities and also many Hindus themselves.

Ethics in Tangents: Part 2 - Ethicality and False sense of Obligation of Producing Children

What follows is modified and significantly expanded from one of my (long) tweets, but it contains doubts/conjectures that I have had for a long time, and which I have articulated at various places in different words.

How ethical is the decision to have a child? If it sounds weird, by it, I mean, do prospective parents really have a right to bring children to life, without seeking (the prospective children's) permission? Perhaps the elaboration sounds even weirder, but given that a hitherto unborn person cannot 'regret' not being born, but an alive person - depending on how life treats him/her - could end up very unhappy and in pain, it seems that every time parents decide to have a child, they are risking pain and unhappiness to the child despite having the option of not taking such risk. What to me makes this very tricky is that the impact of a decision taken by two (or more, in case of Indian families) people affects a totally different person!

To give an analogy:

If you are given a choice to press or not press a button, which would totally randomly give either a chocolate or a pin prick to someone else who is sound asleep (and is thus, neither experiencing pain nor pleasure), what would you do?

For me, the ethical choice would be to not press the button. It might be argued that "but then there is also a chance that the person would get the chocolate"! But remember, putting up that argument still entails taking a decision on someone else's behalf whose disposition we just do not know! How do we know such a person would prefer chocolate to avoidance of a pin prick? However, if I do not press the button, the person remains asleep, and would never regret not being able to get the chocolate he/she could have got on the pressing of button. The counterargument could be that, that by not pressing the button we are depriving the person of a chance to get a chocolate, which would also be a decision in itself. True, it would be, but usually any sort of inaction is unethical when an action is called for. E.g., if a person walking by your side suddenly feels giddy and extends his/her hand towards you (indicating a demand for assistance), then taking an action (helping) would seem more ethical than inaction (not helping). But imagine, that person is not feeling giddy. In that case, action is not called for, and your not helping (obviously) would not be unethical. I hope, I could explain how this example would apply to depriving a person of a chocolate that he is not needing/desiring by virtue of being asleep. [Of course, it needs to be assumed that he/she will remain sound asleep forever, and not complain after 'waking up'!] One of the important things I wanted to highlight alongside the original question was:

Most decisions in life have certain risk involved of their turning out wrong, but usually they directly impact the one taking that decision, and not someone else.

I would also like to point out here that dying is not the same as not taking birth. By way of living a life, we become afraid of death and also get, what I call, 'addicted' to life. E.g., to have never had a cell phone is not the same as being robbed off of one's cell phone. So, keeping this in mind, is it possible to imagine what it would be like to never have been born? If I ask you: "Would you have liked it better to never have been born?", In all honesty, I cannot answer that question. And if one is able to visualize the situation, and especially respond to it in negative, then, they are severely deluding themselves by (unknowingly) invoking the concept of 'soul'. But one thing I am certain of is: without taking birth I would have definitely never regretted not taking birth, because 'regret' is a feeling that is felt by a conscious mind, which in turn is a function of the brain and that certainly requires one to be alive in the conventional sense of the term! Now, try to answer another similar question: would you regret dying after you die? Again, if one is able to answer such a question, and especially so in affirmative, then their mind is leading them astray. But despite admitting that both the situations cannot be visualized, I do feel a tinge of fear at the prospects of not being born and of dying. This, we can call the 'fear of not existing', which I shall shorten to FNE in what follows (perhaps it contributes to our survival instinct as individuals). But again remember, to experience this fear one needs to be alive! Unborn and dead people are not going to feel it! Perhaps, the logic I am trying to illustrate is getting too circular. And perhaps, it is for the same reason we feel grateful to our parents for bringing us to life (and of course, for extending nurture despite the effort and pain it entails), because whenever we think of our parents' decision, our analysis is tinged with FNE. People feel suicidal if the pain or the effort they experience in process of living overwhelms their FNE.

That was all simply about ethicality (or lack thereof) of decision to have a child. Now, if you could understand my questions and arguments above, think of them at a larger scale - would it have been 'bad' had the human species never come into existence? Would it be 'bad' if the human species gets extinct? Respectively, "to who it would have been bad?" and "to who it would be bad?" Can the same be said about the existence of the Earth and the Universe? So, is the fact that the Universe exists something special when our FNE is factored in? Just like how we feel grateful to our parents for giving us birth because our thoughts are tinged with FNE, we feel a sense of gratefulness for the existence of our Universe (which had enabled 'our' existence in the first place). But who do we feel that gratefulness towards? God, of course! But it is important to note here that, not everyone believes that God exists. Also, it is to be noted that it is humanization of the Universe we indulge in each time we think that whatever exists needs to be created from something, and that thus it needs a creator. Of course, this assumption is unfounded!

But getting to the other arm of the analogy, death, we feel FNE with regard to the humanity as well as towards the Earth. As an example, try to examine your feelings if I say, "the Earth would be hit by a large asteroid 150 years from now, and all life would be destroyed by it". I guess, most people would feel a sense of dread. Now, make a simple calculation. Assuming, each of your successive progeny become parents at the age of 35; it means, it would be your fourth & fifth generations that would face the wrath of the asteroid. And honestly, who cares about one's great grandparents, for instance? Meaning, how many of us feel emotionally attached to our great grandparents and great great grandparents (that is four and five generation 'before' us for you). But yet, we feel a sense of dread in response to such prophecies, where those getting affected would be four or five generations removed from us. There are two possible reasons for that: one, that we cannot visualize not existing, and we always subconsciously assess things as if they would affect us (thus insinuating a soul-like eternal existence in the process); and two, that perhaps we feel for humanity and Earth, what we feel for our 'self'. Meaning, I am humanity, and I am Earth (okay, that sounds funny, but I cannot explain it better). And it is for this reason that we invest so much in future to try to save our planet from destruction, when perhaps the fact is that such 'destruction' would not affect us, nor some of the generations that immediately follow us.

In my analysis, I have obviously not considered the fact that it is not possible to consult unborn children, nor the fact that if everyone would start thinking like me, the human species could get extinct! As you might appreciate, those two concerns do not figure in the equation of ethics here. So if you are confused whether to marry or not, and then, whether to have a child or not, I hope I have been able to assure that if by your not producing children, you fear that you might be contributing to the extinction of the human species, then your fear is unfounded! ;)

I believe with this post I have crudely dealt with:

1. The ethicality of decision to have a child.
2. Why we think there needs to be a creator for the Universe to exist.
3. Why we fear for damage to and/or extinction of the human species and the Earth.

Disclaimer: I am unmarried [and if the one reading this is a woman of my age who would be ready to marry me and put up with rants as above, then she can consider this as an advertisement! ;) ], and this doubt (doubt about ethicality of having a child) does not have much to do with my own life, but I cannot get the doubt out of my mind. Of course, what I eventually conclude would influence my wanting to have a child or not, but of course that would have to be in consultation with my then spouse.

Survival of the Fittest - a Counterintuitive Example and Evolution of Man

Charles Darwin (click) had put forth the theory of natural selection (click), which has been defined by Wikipedia as follows:

Natural selection is the process by which certain heritable traits - those that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce - become more common in a population over successive generations.

Natural selection is frequently referred to as "survival of the fittest" for sake of simplicity.

Let me give a hypothetical example. There are two varieties of moths in a population - A and B. A flies faster and has a better sense of smell; B is slower and cannot smell as well. The moths feed on flower nectar for survival. Also, they are equally likely to successfully reproduce. These two varieties live in an area where there is a scarcity of flowers. Let this flower be called the O variety. Common sense would suggest that A should be able to get to flowers faster - both because of better sense of smell and faster flying. Thus, fewer of the B variety would be able to survive, and gradually their numbers would decrease. There would come a time when the ratio of both the varieties in the population would stabilize in the region. This because, despite A's ability to reach the flowers faster, pure chance would allow the B variety to also feed on few flowers. Moreover, B-moth has to mate only once to pass down its genes even if it dies of starvation.

Now imagine, someone introduces a new plant (N variety) in the region such that its flower produces a very strong fragrance. The problem with this plant is, it is insectivorous (click), i.e., its flower traps and digests (kills) insects to fulfill its protein requirements. Now obviously, A-moths would reach the N-flowers faster and die. Gradually, the ratio of A:B moths would decrease. Whether B-moths outnumber the A-moths would depend on the relative strengths of fragrances of the O- and N-flowers. If the N-flower has stronger fragrance, then most of the A-moths would get attracted to it and die without reproducing. The situation for B-moths would be more complex. Whether their absolute numbers decrease significantly or not would depend on the number of N-flowers available. Meaning, if N-flowers are themselves not very successful in surviving, then they would only be able to decrease the number of A-moths, which would leave B-moths free to feed on O-flowers and mate gaily (with moth of the opposite sex, of course!). But if N-flowers increase significantly in number, the entire moth population might get eliminated from the region.

The important thing I wanted to illustrate was when talking of fittest in the sense of survival, the said traits need not be what we ordinarily think of as good (e.g., better sense of smell and faster speed of flying). Those traits must help the individual organisms survive and reproduce as well. So as part of evolution, species on the whole do not 'improve', but become better suited for the environment.

Human species has come a long way from having to struggle for basic survival. 'Success' in many societies is not even linked to ability to reproduce. Ability to attract a suitable mate does not necessarily transform into passing down of genes, thanks to contraception and family planning. Many inheritable diseases may manifest after the affected individual reproduces. With possibility of cloning in the future, even those unable to reproduce conventionally may be able to pass on their genes.

All these factors have made a few people concerned that the 'quality' of human beings would worsen. But there is inherent paradox in this idea. 'Quality' of human beings has nothing to do with human conceptions of desirable or undesirable traits. From perspective of natural selection, fit v/s unfit had always been about ability to pass on ones genes.

So will the human species stop evolving?

This question cannot be answered in simplistic terms. Unfortunately, because of being exposed to pictures that show evolution of species in a linear fashion with various stages (e.g. tree-dwelling lemurs getting transformed into upright walking humans), we have come to believe that evolution is all about gross physical changes. But then many changes could be subtle and not manifest physically. What allows new traits to emerge in a population are gene mutations (click), i.e., an inheritable change in an existing trait or appearance of a new one. So in case of humans, though new mutations would keep on emerging, they are unlikely to displace people of pre-existing traits, because, they will not necessarily make them reproduce at faster rate.

Surging ahead in time, when societal pressures to reproduce to continue the family would diminish, factors like inherent attraction to children and nurturing behavior, both of which are enhanced by a hormone called oxytocin (click) could become important. Thus in future, not necessarily physically stronger or better looking or more intelligent people, but those with higher oxytocin levels and desire to rear children would be evolutionarily more "successful"! Of course, all this is merely my conjecture.

Hypothesis of God's Existence is Inadmissible if God Behaves Randomly

Many people with who I interact online know know me to be atheist, but ironically, I have said very little about the basis of that atheism here.

Atheism (lack of belief that God exists) depends on definition of (attributes assigned to) God. Deism & 'Randomly behaving God' are not falsifiable. But one of the prerequisites to admit any proposition as possibly true is, it has to be falsifiable. For instance, if I say, "there exists a force between 2 balls such that it is directly proportional to the product of their masses, & inversely proportional to the square of distance between them", & call it theory of 'mystical gravity', then such a statement is NOT falsifiable as I have not specified the direction of force. Such a statement cannot be disproved by actual or thought experiments. If we conduct an experiment with Newton's original theory as hypothesis, then it is falsifiable. How? If you place two balls in a frictionless environment, the (UNIQUE) prediction is that they will be attracted with predicted force & will accelarate (with predicted value) TOWARDS EACH OTHER for ALL combinations of mass & distance. If any of these do NOT occur (say, balls move away from each other), then Newton's theory would be proved wrong. But the mystical theory cannot be falsified (as it gives MULTIPLE predictions), because irrespective of how the two balls move in each others' presence, I can always say, "see, force is predicted, but we do not know which component of force is acting in which direction"! Thus, one would have to acknowledge existence of a (directionless) 'mystical force of gravitation' independent of how balls behave.

Analogy from mathematics: any REAL function must yield a unique value 'y' (dependent variable) for any given value of 'x' (independent variable). Why? As we want to derive a "law" that would be able to PREDICT the outcome ('y') each time we are given a defined situation 'x' (e.g., distance between two particles of constant mass). Now, most of the definitions of God are such that they do not give a unique result ("God's ways cannot be known" or "God only knows") for any given situation. So, any reasoning based on such a God's involvement would be like an unreal function.

Most of the concepts of God are like
mystical theory of gravitation. You can claim God exists (like mystical gravity), but cannot predict how God will behave (undefined direction of force).