Work from home is the need of the hour

The present pandemic in the world has bought to the fore a prime mistake in the industry. The mentality of the present industry is a carry over from the industrial revolution. The entire work force has to be brought into a walled fortress and hold them for a minimum number of hours under a different setup and set of laws different from the societal setup. The precursor to the industrial revolution was the cottage industry. Every society had its equilibrium by specialists doing what they do best and continue to do so for centuries. Majority of the cottage industry were highly skilled and carefully guarded secrets. Very rarely did finished goods cross the local society. Every society had its dress code based on the raw material and the ability of the tailor in the locality. Majority of the procedures were available in the house of the creator.

Now it is all about nationwide/global markets. Highly skilled jobs have been broken down to easily assimilated steps which can be done by anybody. There are not much crafts which can be called a secret in the present scenario. All the goods created so were physical in nature. It made sense to create the most economical process flow to minimize the costs. This industry also gave birth to the service industry which are truly global. But still there are mom and dad service centers who cater to the last mile.

The one industry which blindly followed the strategies of the physical industry is the software industry. The work content are poles apart. The software industry does not need to collect all the contributors under one concrete building. The industry works on collaboration and there have been many tools available for collaboration through the public network. The industry also employs a considerable number of people and the earnings are also supposed to be good. This industry contributes most to the usage of roads/vehicles since this industry works three shifts. There are not many physical industries which can run all the three shifts with the same efficiency. Code written at home or at desk are no different. In fact, the disturbances of the open office or the cramping of the closed ones dont augur well for the motivation of the contributors.

It is now high time the industry and the government wakes up and stops this movement of the work force. The software and the call center/remote service industry have to start working from home. This will reduce the load on the roads and the infrastructure can be utilized for other purposes. This would also result in stabilizing the real estate prices. This would also stop investment in projects like we-work. This can be utilized in improving the public network backbone. This sort of work culture can employ well deserving remote employees who cant come down to the cities for a job. This would in turn provide opportunity for remote workers in villages to do an evening/night job combined with agriculture and other familial activities. This is perfect for the female staff to take care of their kids and their education. There are many occasions where high earning couples are not having time to contribute for their kids. Just a mere presence of the parents in the house can mean a lot for the kids. This gives an opportunity for real flexi hours based on the commitment of the parents like sending the kid for school and then collecting him back.

Motivational theories are to be re-written, Managerial roles are to be re-configured and definitely will create jobs for people to maintain the public network infrastructure. Improvements should always be welcome and learning should be continuous and inclusive. I request all the software companies to completely shift to remote working and give opportunities to the most remote locations and identify and support capable people wherever they are. The pandemic demands minimum amount of people available in the out. Make the world a better place.

Bring back the feed readers and push back the algoritms

In the present world of social networking, the corporations have pushed us into the push method of giving information. That is information is forced through our throat. It is a torture but with golden and platinum tools. It is like we have been manipulated to enjoy the torture. The torture of forced feed of information. The information which is curated by the 1%. There was a time before the explosion of the public network, the 1% did not have "real" information of the remaining 99%. It was just a vague idea that people are in misery in general and they have to be maintained so. But, today, the corporations know the level and extent of misery of every individual and this information is extracted to the maximum. The information is available free with the consent of the individual. No need of any special sponsored survey, which was happening before the era of the public network. Data of the people was only with the government. Corporations would cozy up with the governments for the data. Now, it is not so. It is the other way round, the governments are cozying up with the corporations. That is the amount of data available with them. All this is because the corporations are modelling the behavior and acts of the individual by carefully curating the information which will be bombarded to the user. The user will have no option but to digest it. In the beginning he might resist. But the same data is coated with sugar in another pushed information. Until you "like" the information you will be bombarded with the same info in plenty other forms, hidden.

This push strategy does not give the user any sort of freedom regarding choice of avoiding it. If you search for a certain information, the search result which is payed for is pushed to you. You think that you are pulling the result from the search engine. But taking your query as an input with various other personal information, the search result is "personalized" and "pushed" to you. Whatever is presented to you would not be what you really wanted. But, you will be told, this "is" what you searched for. The same with all the social networking algorithms. The name algorithm is a fancy name for the service provided to puss what he wants to tell you regarding any subject you search for with your hashtag. Hashtags are not for the convenience of the individual users. It is for the convenience of the corporations. Just see the amount of hashtags in any post sponsored. The hashtag is one key which is visible to the user. There are plenty in the metadata of sponsored posts which will be used to feed to you based on the metadata collected from your likes and dislikes. Dont think that your dislikes are neglected. Dislikes grab more of your eyeballs than the things you like. If you come across a post which you like, you will see the subject and like it without even reading it. It is not the same with your dislikes. You want to read through and pat yourself on your back for you being correct.

This is the time for Feed readers. The feed reader which google killed. The feedreader which mozilla, the ethical browser wants all the users to forget. Now, what is so great about the rss/atom feeds. Well to start with the technology is tried and tested and works beautifully. It is simple to implement. Whenever I have requested a website maintainer of my interest for adding feed support, it was done in a days time. It is so human. This is a pull strategy of getting updated information from your preferred/trusted information provider. It supports individual websites. That is the websites run by individuals. It supports blogs, which again was killed and pushed to obscurity by all the social networking behemoths. Blogs are so simple and beautiful.

A simple website is a treat to watch and browse. They appear the same in the most featured and also the minimum browsers. If I like the content on and individual's website, I will subscribe to his feed. Only when I ask my feedreader to refresh do I get information regarding any new posts. If I dont want to read, then I will not refresh my feed. This feed is chosen by me. There is no algorithm here. It might be suggested to me from a friend, But, I have the choice of going through his content and to subscribe or not. Once you like an article, since you read only the first few lines, you are going to visit the page. You are now supporting him by visiting his page and may or may not click on some ads, so that the content creator earns money. If the created content is so good, you can donate to him and encourage him to continued to do more. It is a win win situation for both the creator and the consumer. The creator need not worry about people from other domains reading, not understanding it and providing shitbag of comments. The creator is the king as should be. He should have the full rights as to whether any comments should be kept up or not. It is his content. You might not like it, and you may unsubscribe. The creator will find other fans, but, the consumer might not find more capable content creators. The feeds give ample opportunities for both the creators and consumers.

If you are a content creator, kindly add RSS/atom support to your website/blog. And if you are a consumer, support your content creator by using feed readers and supporting the creator directly without any intermediary who is making money out of the creator and also the consumer. Let us make the public network a better place.

All isms trying to chase utopia,

There have been many attempts at defining the utopian societal system. Every model having its own advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are the ones the modellers are concentrating on achieving with the model. They concentrate on this so much that when asked to talk about anything outside this core area, they blabber. They blabber and then come out with a crude mechanism to be inclusive of the new issues which have come up. Now, the thing is whether you are a bourgeoisie or a proletariat, you are still a human being. The societal setup cannot kill a human being. Yes you can show he is wrong in the larger scope of the world. But, he will still be wrong with respect to the societal setup you are trying to achieve. If the bourgeoisie tell a different story and he has a different model then the new model proponents will be seen as the wrong doers. So, this right and wrong is a complicated issue and will be left as is until the words find use again. But, there will not be an answer for what is right or wrong. Even if somebody argues about a situation in the time continuum and talk about right and wrong it is his perspective. Similarly there will be perspectives of all the actors involved in the situation and definitely everybody have their own view of the right and wrong.

All utopian societal systems exist with a sort of control mechanism. Who is going to administer this control mechanism is the point. Whoever takes over this mantle is the ruler in any form of the societal setup. All societal setups require control mechanisms. This is because you have a framework and people have to be ensured to stay in that framework. So, you are telling me there is a societal system which does not require this sort of control and that is anarchy. Well, you still have to maintain anarchy. You have to ensure that anarchy stays and every body adheres to it. What if some group decide in the principle of anarchy to be a democratic setup or a socialist setup or the most controversial and the most misused and the most misunderstood and the most underdeveloped societal system of all times, the communist setup. The communist setup is so bad that every leader has taken the threads of the model which suits the situation and the attitudes of the people and have used it against the people in the guise of using it for the people. This applies to the capitalist's favorite, democracy also.

The perfect utopia is perfect control. Human beings are no more human. They are just biological beings. They dont feel what is right and wrong. They are at peace with the societal setup. They dont question anything in the setup. If ever a single person question the system, then it is not perfect utopia. Utopia can only exist with perfect surrender. It is therefore never possible with human beings. It is in our system to question, to query to ask for better even in the best possible scenario. This expectation of human beings should be alive. This expectation and always on the lookout for better is utopia. Yes, people will try to suppress this trait of humans. But, history is example that human beings normally outgrow the system which is oppressive or free. Even total freedom has to be questioned. Since this gives freedom to kill and to thieve. So the yearn for perfection will be its undoing. It is a continuous loop and should continue so. If this questioning ability stops then a different species other than human beings might think of it is utopian and robotic together.

Mere questioning has never produced results. If results are required then the questioning group should come out with a strategy also which is for the common good. Instead of seeing the profit of a corporation only. They should give out a holistic approach towards the improvement of all the actors involved. In fact they should bargain hard for the people they are fighting for instead of concentrating on whom they are fighting against. The argument should be economically sound first and then enter political and theoretical category. The economical argument can be easily understood by the parties involved and also the third party onlookers whose support is required to win the argument.

Privacy in the present world

Privacy: When people listen to this word they normally associate with privacy from their parents, siblings or their friends. So, when somebody tells they want some "privacy" they mean "me" time and thats it. This is the definition of many of the people. The big companies and the state are making use of this mentality of people to generalize privacy and to re-instate this definition of privacy. So what you get to maintain your privacy, Your phone unlocks only with your finger print, so none of your family can use it. If it was a code maybe your parents would ask for your code and you would be pressurized to give it when you are away. Now , you have the finger print scanner and when you are away the phone is a brick which nobody can access. You have got your privacy. Congratulations.

Now, while your phone is locked and seemingly a brick to your father and yourself is more live than you. It is sending out and receiving data continuously. it is after all a computer and computers as you know are not tired. The amount of horse power in the present devices is enormous and all this is put to use 24 hours a day. Not even a second is left. When you are not using your phone facebook is busy getting the text your entered into whatsapp before your shoot send. Because before you shoot send the text and all other information you want to share is UN-encrypted. So now facebook has that data which you wanted to send through your favorite encrypted free messaging system. Though the founders have departed, the juggernaut rolls on. Of course facebook knows to whom you sent the data. So, you are basically using facebook whole over again in the guise of encryption.

You will definitely ask me why take that example. Well that nearly covers majority of the users on the planet outside the apple ecosystem. Now let us come to the make believe elite system which use the apple ecosystem. I always believed that apple had strong business ethics, not moral ethics. Like their hardware and software is elite and unique to their Eco-system. They will sell their devices at a premium and what the user does with that is not their concern. This I think was happening with all their desktop and laptop offering before the iphone. With the iphone came the moral conundrum. Actually the iphone to start with did not create this issue. The issue was created by google with its android ecosystem. Here was a company which is going to make money by selling user data. By targeting users with ads related to their tastes. How do you do it? Get the user to accept a complicated user agreement before you can access the device. It did not stop at ads. It progressed to speech recognition, AI and so on.

Now the thing is data became important. The costliest commodity on the planet next to the rarest element on the planet. The same strategy which the printing companies did with their cartridges. Though the printers could be given free since the users had to buy a physical product, Here, the phones could not be given for free. They are complicated computers. In this case the users are f*&d all ways in all the holes. You buy a premium phone and you will be giving away more data. It is like having the cake and the icing too. Your phone is pinging data every mill-second. It is pinging data to all corners of the world.

You are now having an app ecosystem to bring you out of this mess. Well, these apps are all built out of user contributions. The phone makers can alter the operating system itself to bypass all these apps which try to stop these pingings. So, if your phone is connected to the public network with the present crop for smart phones, you are pinging data. Have you not been surprised to see a link or a post related to "masturbation" after watching porn on your phone. Your were asking what are they going to do with the data. Now, it has been answered. This is one of the simplest way intelligence is taken out of your data consumed an exported from your device. Just imaging the amount of data collected through out the world and then feed it to "Big data" to make it even bigger.

Privacy is the context  have been talking in the previous paragraphs. it is not what is described in the first para. The corporations have moved from text and binary data to voice and video. It is difficult to know whether the mic is activated through out the life of your phone or only switches on when you watch porn. And while doing so, it might the device might switch on the front facing camera also. Just see how embarrassing it might be. You might be talking about an ailment or your friends ailments or you might talk about buying something. You might do a search for a particular ailment a product. It is recorded against your id. the corporations can combine it with your data sets and come out with the perfect ad or will feed you more of what you talked. You watch a thriller in Netflix, you are offered an unknown number of the same genre. You will be shown links related to them, but your are their unsuspecting user and you will click through it. This relation is generated by the the data they have collected from the whole world. Though you feel UN-related this link will re-inforce whatever you were searching for.

All corporations now hire behavioral scientists, data researchers who help them with their strategies. So, how do we get out of it? Do we want to get out of it? Are we happy in our walled paradise? Do we value our private data? Do we thing we have nothing to hide? Do we think we dont have anything of value? Do we think commenting and up-voting of posts on social media yields nothing to anybody?Is convenience a better trade-off for individual privacy? Is an individual of no value? Is an individual only a data generator? Is an individual not a human? Will the individual stand up for his rights?

Vanilla Socialism is non-sense

             I came across a very simple definition of socialism. For a very long time it was very tiresome to understand this societal concept. It is not that I have become a specialist at it. It is just that I know it as a single line which tries to encompass the whole concept of it. "The entire ownership of the means of production is with the state". If this is the case what do individuals own in a pure socialist setup? Does the means of production also include the people. All the big socialist tryouts in the past have made it very clear that the state owns the people, their livelihood, their actions and their style of living. Yes, I understand that we are now looking at Dictatorship of the state. But, isnt socialism just that. Are all humans on the planet inherently self motivated and all work for the common good. Are all the individuals ready to take in the same salary and live in same sized houses, same rations, same clothes, same everything. By birth every individual is unique and always tries to be his own. Every individual wants his place under the sun in a unique way. It might be in a good or bad way, depending on how the society decides what is good and bad.

                  If everybody works the same amount and produces the same quantity and quality of goods, there is no question of state deciding it, it is already there and done. The world is so complicated. How is the state going to innovate if all its people go out and do the same job for their entire life. How is the state going to reward the extra-ordinary. Innovation, design and related activities are creative. How is the state going to ensure that creativity also is equal? But, all humans are not creative. The creativity among humans varies from near zero to a level where some people cannot sit quite for even a second. What is the motivation for this sort of creativity. Will the state take this ownership and create a creativity department. No, creativity is not a factory. What if some people dont accept this societal setup. Will they be forced to accept it or banished to an other planet. One more important question is what all will the state do. Since it owns all the means of production, that means all the activities have to be managed by the state. What will the constituents of the so called "state"? Will the state be questionable? Will there be "questioning" department? If there is one there definitely should be an answering department. How beautiful. You ask the question and you answer it. It cannot get better than this. Which people are the state. How will they be chosen? How big will the state be? Will they live in the same houses and lanes. If you want true socialism then the there should be vast expanses of houses with eerily the same design what so ever. For dinner the entire society will be eating the same food, irrespective of their position in the state or out of it.

                If such setup does exist, how do you ensure that it stays that way? Now, we are entering into dark waters where nobody wants in. Will you use fore to ensure that the society stays this way or do you depend on the human tendency that he is a "social" being and will accept this intrinsically. A person who works hard will not do so. A person who wants better food, better facility by hook or crook cannot do so. A creative idea when it comes into any person, he should be having that "socialist" yearning for disclosing it, otherwise it will stay locked and die with him. But then we are humans, not ants and bees. We are an evolved species. Creativity has flowered in toughest dictatorial setups for want of recognition and better living conditions. Yes, they do suppress creativity aimed at the common good, but it gives out routes for creativity in lanes which would not have opened in a more free setup. The lack of recognition and the redtape involved in the socialist setup will again inhibit creativity for the common good and support creativity for controlling strategies.

Any society if it tells itself as socialist, should come out with the percentage. Pure socialism is non-sense even for a textbook explanation, because we are talking about humans.

The profession of Farming

           The profession closest to the elements of nature is of course, farming. Is the profession of farming menial? Can the world survive with no farming at all? Have we reached the position wherein the human necessities can be given in a pill? Does the human race want that? Well, the virtual living beings, the corporations would love such a situation. That would be total control. Let us come back to the profession of farming. Where does it fall in the continuum of the current professions. Is farming really a profession? Is Industrial farming the answer to all the problems faced by the present farming community. Why is it always farming community and IT profession? Why is it that a farmer is always left high and dry to the whims and fancies of natural elements. A farmer is something like air, water and fire. It is like the food grown by him is in excess as the other natural elements. But, food has to be grown. It is not available readily and in abundance.

          When will the farmer get his due? He uses fertilizers to get a good yield to make a profit, we call him un-ethical. He farms using organic practices we dont like the look of the produce and scoff at the cost of it. Now take the example of all other professions everything is right until the stockholders profit expectations are met and these expectations keep growing. Why does the farmer not worry about profits. Why is he alone in this? Why is he not formed into a corporation? Why because this model was tried and lead to bonded labor. Farming is hard work and corporations cannot bear it if farming is given the proper identification as a "Industry". Farming is labor intensive and involves plenty of risks until you grow "cash" crops. Farming is a high risk profession. The factors which go against a good yield is mind boggling. I cannot list it here. But, then, you will ask me whether sweepers/toiler cleaners are menial jobs. Well, no job is menial. But, in these cases, there is a necessity and opportunity available. The risk will only be reduction in salaries but, salary is available and cleaning is a must and has to continue. The earnings are definitely menial. But, the risk to get the stipulated salary is nothing compared to what might happen to a farmer.

          Will the solution be consolidation of farms and mechanization? The US is a fine example. But, the employment opportunities in such a setup is minimal and seasonal. If there are 100 people in a village small tracts of land was providing employment opportunities for all the 100. Now if it is consolidated, maybe a couple will get jobs and the remaining 98 have to be accommodated in other professions. That is one side of the story. These farming corporations will only grow what will yield the maximum profits irrespective what is the requirements. Here again the corporations might have hidden deals wherein every group in a particular state would grow a specific type of crop so that there is no duplication. This appears to be economically viable but, what about the people whose livelihoods have now been lost. They have their homes in their villages but they cannot stay there since there is no employment. Now, they would come out of their villages. How about employment and housing for these displaced farmers. In our country farmers displaced for construction of dams(tip of the iceberg) are living on pavements in towns and cities lacking any other professional knowledge and already heavily crowded lower level employments.

               There have been reverse migration of highly educated and plenty earned professionals going back to village and be close to the elements. This is not solving any issues. They are just buying huge swaths of land, barricading them and employing helpers from the villages, who again are the same farmers who sold their lands. These are small corporations. If they really need to be near to the elements, then there is one more element, the human element. They should first get close to that element. Instead of buying up huge swaths of land, they should perform the role of advisors and try to improve their knowledge about their professions and improve their profitability and survival prospects.

          The world may look down upon our country for the caste system. But, the roots of the caste system is societal/economic and later brought under political strategy. The world has always been following the varna system and has been following to this day. How one profession is better and high paying than the other, is nothing but the varna system taken for granted.

But, it is high time the single farmer is given his due.
  

All systems of the world showing their kinks

             The world we live in boasts about so many "systems" being in place to better the human life. Every country, Every state, Every district, Every town, Every village, Every community, Every friends circle, Every individual have their own idea about the best system. There is no collective agreement to any sort of the "best" system. When we use the word system, the few things which come to our mind are political and economical systems which are in turn made up of theological, business, ethnicity, history and other smaller systems which make up the political and economic system. Whenever people talk about a system they will be indirectly talking about the political and economical systems. Why do all these exist? Yes, you will tell me that these exist to keep the 1% continuously maintain their 1% by keeping the other 99% exactly where they are by giving them the illusion that they are indeed growing in all walks of life.

              The point of discussion is do the 1% who run and maintain the systems, understood them like the back of their hand? No. They dont understand the beast they have given birth to. The beast dont care whether you are the 1% or the 99%. It is just that the time taken by the beast to make them surrender. All the systems in the world cannot clearly define what is exactly required for the world to self-sustain. All the systems in the world dont know how to manage a calamity. All the systems dont know that for the 1% to stay there require the other 99% to exist. If we are left with only the 1% then there will be nothing left.

            All the systems in the world look good when the going is good. If the going gets tough all the systems become questionable. Every kink in the systems start leaking out. Every system starts blaming the other and starts exposing itself. One aspect is very clear. All the systems are in-sensitive to particular traits which belong to living biological organisms. Just because the system has appointed few institutions as living beings under the legal system does not classify them as a living/breathing biological organism. All the political and economic setup of the world cannot compensate for the hardships of the 99% toiling away so that the systems always run in profits. When the going is good, the 99% rarely ask to what happened to the profits. When there is a situation, that is when questions will be raised as to what happened to the profits. This is the time the systems in the world should know how to act and how to prioritize. This is the time the 1% should act and ensure that the 99% continue existing. It is pathetic that the Masters cannot bear the hardships of the people offering their services ever for two months. There have been people working for the same setup for several years and suddenly they become a liability.

              You cannot sell masks for ever if it is certain that all the people buying them will gradually cease to exist. It is high time, the systems/governments/corporations running the world, to pool their resources and provide them to that part of the 99% which can save the remaining 99.999999% of the living world. This is time for them to maintain normalcy in the world by doing things which would put the 99% thoughts to normal. Invest in keeping the 99% safe and then devising means to take in their service/efforts. It is time to stop the traditional mind set and device work cultures/work environments which look/appear and "do" the job of ensuring the health of the person providing his services. This is time to instill confidence in the workforce of the world by a radical shift in the way which the workforce works. Re-design the work areas/procedures to make it fool proof so that nobody gets affected just because he went to work. Ensure nobody is affected because he chose to work.

            I request all the systems in the world to protect the workforce. The workforce is what keeps the world ticking. The workforce feeds all the families in the world. The workforce is what ensures that there is a 1% in this systemic setup.