pseudonymousgun

Not sure where you read these information, but makes no sense.

you don't understand social justice, do you ?

There is definitely caste system in hiring process. If you take any big company operating in India, and you will most certainly find the caste system replicated in the corporate structure in India. The Brahmin caste dominates the corporate hierarchies and are the perpetrators of this system, typically through favoritism and through their early advantage (but their grip is loosening up slowly).

Finally, much needed relief from nonsensical stuff. Thanks for building this.

Just checked the profiler, it is a professional feature. 200 USD for a year. Not within my purchasing power as of now, but thanks for the suggestion :)

Paid PR ?

Thanks a lot for responding and sharing your book recommendations! :)

If you start maintaining a list, would there be a way to know that ? Would you be sharing here on HN ?

Reading books > Reading articles on HN

Although i admit, HN is addictive.

> The idea of humanity returning to a caveman-level of knowledge seems unlikely to me.

Agreed! :)

Also, do you have or maintain a list of great books which you came across ? I see your profile, and you mention "Philosopher, writer and entrepreneur traveling the world."

I would love to see your bookshelf :)

You made some interesting points down below, but i couldn't reply to those, hence responding here :)

Tbh, i am enjoying your arguments as such!

> barring some sort of total worldwide wipe of electronic data, the information and knowledge will still be out there

Isn't the world shifting in its warfare strategies ? We fought with different tools at different times. But the modern warfare seems to be moving towards misinformation, destruction of information etc ?

> I'd say it's inevitable that over time, humans will re-centralize and re-organize.

Agreed! It seems that eventually we would have to re-organize!

> Civilizations seem to benefit from having competition, as long as they don't destroy / are destroyed by them. It's a fine balance.

Agree with this one too, but i am more worried about generations that would follow us. It is a very fine balance indeed, hope humanity treads it with reason :)

Right :) But all resources are finite regardless of how far we travel. Civilizations may collapse before we accomplish everything we set out to do on other planets. There are two aspects to be taken care of, one is the exploration of space and the other is maintaining the fragile environment (socio-political-economic) here on earth.

Also, if countries co-operate on space exploration it would be better, than making it a race to be first etc. Which will only lead to worse outcomes between nations if history is any indicator. :)

I just got downvoted for saying something similar :) That isn't the problem. The reason i shared these opinions here on HN, is due to the faith in the HN community that they would be willing to have a civil discourse even if its opposed to their worldview. That is something i least expect from the HN community. :)

I would be happy if those who downvoted without reading the entire argument, would also contribute their views on why this argument is wrong :)

That is an interesting POV, which i have considered too. But in order to reach Mars / Moon - don't we need resources from earth in order to build ? Resource extraction is energy intensive. It consumes a lot of energy here on earth. How much energy would it require to first build and then transport resources from other planets back to earth etc ? What would be the impact in case during re-entry with resource payload from other planets, a spacecraft propelled by nuclear energy bursts ? What are the other unknowns which we are willing to take for granted ?

Space research and development has indeed given us some very useful outcomes - no doubt. Also, other countries are into space research and development too, worried that this could put other able countries in a race that could result in bad outcomes.

We have plenty of problems to solve here on earth. Is technology only about solving for curiosity of what is possible ? Or is technology about solving real problems of energy, minimal impact to the environment etc ?

The ocean cleanup project is a good example of solving problems for humanity here on earth. Now that we managed to dump enormous amounts of plastic into our waterways and eventually into oceans. There are other interesting problems which beg technological solutions too.

True, but i wasn't referring to exploitation of the ecology on the Moon - of course, there is no ecology on Moon. I was referring to the ecological destruction on earth (consumer culture and profit motives driving us to the brink of ecological collapse on earth). There are other studies where impacts of the first world countries and their economies on the planet is well documented, but i do not wish to enter into that conversation as such.

Countries are thinking of planets as resources to be extracted and profit from, which in itself is incorrect, imo.

This is a kinder way of living in harmony with our nature (again imo) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lc_dlVrg5M

Simple and genuine question, why does the US feel entitled to all natural resources and do as it pleases ? Isn't the Moon and the mars common to all humanity ? Why does the US assume it can do whatever it wants on these planets ? With this, other countries will join the race, and soon moon and mars will be exploited just like we have unleashed massive ecological destruction on earth.

Actually, i would love to have a discussion with you - since there is a lot of thinking that went into quitting the smartphone. I have been mulling quitting smartphones for more than 2 years now. Only the pandemic let me to quit the smartphone. I do not have much anxiety over corona, it's beyond control. But smartphone is within our control. To quit or not seemed a simple decision for me. I was always willing to quit. My work demands made me put up with it for so long. Since WFH began due to pandemic, i see no need to use a smartphone anymore. I have diligently tracked my usage on smartphone and am pretty aware of how much time i wasted on it. Surprisingly, i am not addicted to any social media. But i started getting addicted to Youtube (if you consider that a social media, then yes). I didn't waste my time on pointless conspiracies etc on youtube. But nevertheless, i wasted enormous amounts of time on it. Hence, i was just waiting for the perfect time to quit it and to set expectations to people who would otherwise want to reach me.

I am already living this idea. I do not own a smartphone in 2020. It has been close to 2 months and i do not miss it. Once the lockdown is over, then the real test of how long i could resist the allure of smartphones would be evident.

Linux desktop is simply unreliable. I know this might not be what the community would like to see in the comments, but in my experience, the linux desktop has a long way to go in terms of reliability.

For example, an ubuntu update, literally crashed my system and i managed to recover my machine from collapse. I am a techie, so i managed to do this, how many normal people can do this ? Would they know where to look for the issue ?

Also, the desktop freezing, and constant popups asking to submit reports for some internal issues is quite an annoyance.

Having said these, using only cli linux is the best and no OS comes closer to the versatility of linux. But as a desktop, i feel its has not made it. Reliability is a core feature.

watch command

Working for a company and thinking of work in terms of "career". If i could start all over again, i would be trying to do something on my own.

I just hope companies get rid of the "hr recruitment" team. These people are utterly clueless folks, who hardly know anything about technology and worse these people call the shots when the time comes to settle on pay package.

> I don't know if 'ironic' is the right word but here in comments I read someone mentioning "HR wouldn't support lower level employees" in the comment in the context of "dalit". Guess what "dalit" are? "lower level employees in the society" (those who cleaned up waste).

You need to look within yourself - with the above comment you are putting yourself down in front of people. Such a bad outlook. Reeks of racist / casteist attitude. Seek some help, and read good books to get out of this pathetic attitude towards fellow human beings.

Please spare the dalits my friend :) they are the worst affected from this caste based discrimination! :) Sure, there may be a few who engage in the kinds of practices you are referring to but the majority don't. Even if they did, that would be to protect themselves (these kinds of dalits tend to be enlightened about their plight in society and local politics in their organization) and to create checks and balances they engage in this stuff.

It is a kind of racism my friend - it is not mentioned in the Hindu scriptures that those who are born to a Brahmin are also by birth brahmin. But in reality, that's how it is - a person is born into a caste, by birth.

For example, if a brahmin person has a baby, then that baby is brahmin by birth. But this is not what the scriptures prescribe. The scriptures mention the caste system by the nature of work one adopts.

But as you can see, it was easily corruptible. Even in 2020, there are brahmin people who explicitly state that they are the superior caste with no repercussions when the constitution mandates equal rights to its citizens. If this is not racism, what is ? Calling some fellow human being as inferior ?

I get what you were explaining, but i disagree with these parts

> How would you expect the people in those times to be okay with touching those who used to clean up toilets by hand, carry the waste on their backs?

The trouble is, this wasn't something people chose to do by choice - it was thrust upon them initially and eventually conditioned to accept as "their duty" to the society through religious conditioning. (Read Gandhi's commentary justifying this type of work)

There is enough written about this and if you are interested you can easily look up about this online and in libraries.

> traditionally descendants did the same business as it was easily taught to kids

Even this was thrust through years of conditioning my friend. They were not "allowed" to take up any other profession - they could be dead, if they dared to do this. The references for this go far back to scriptures and other religious literature my friend.

> dalit's were not working in lower level because they were untouchables, but they were untouchables because they worked in the lower levels

Not true, read the comment above, they were forced into lower level work initially.

> Indian society let Mr. B R Ambedkar (who was born Dalit) to write constitution of India - that speaks volumes.

You haven't read Ambedkar have you ? :) Indian society didn't "let" Mr. B R Ambedkar to write the constitution, he rose to that position through sheer intellectual power! He was very very ahead of his times my brother! He faced many many challenges throughout his rise due to his origins being from lower class, he rose in spite of it.

A man of such calibre, resigned when in a position of power because he didn't believe in certain ideas put forth for discussion while making amendments to the constitution etc. He felt that would jeopardize the efforts he had put in to make the constitution equal for all - and undermine democracy! Such was the man!

It still exists in 2020. People who live in cities at least don't face it directly - its always indirect, implicit, subtle and ruthless.

People who live in Tier-2, Tier-3 cities and in villages / panchayats - the caste based discrimination is very obvious and explicit. People wear their (upper) caste as a badge of honor all the while discriminating lower caste people openly with no consequences, although the Indian constitution considers all citizens equal.

Maybe this should also reveal why impactful innovations don't occur much in India - where the majority of the population (~97%) is classified as 'untouchables', 'dalits', 'lower caste', 'most backward class', 'backward class', 'other backward class' and treated badly and discriminated - no wonder the large population in India is busy dealing with their socio-economic condition rather than freeing up their mental bandwidth to innovate on socially impactful ideas!

pretty sure some Brahmin user downvoted this :D This is the reality in India, whether private or government jobs doesn't matter. People who actually work here know this as an unspoken truth. And i merely pointed out Winston Churchill's comments on Brahmins, even that triggers some :D