Blogroll to be read later

 https://www-moneycontrol-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/ai-will-crush-indias-demographic-dividend-to-demographic-debt-12865412.html/amp

Why I don't visit doctors

I have often been asked why I dont visit doctors for my issues. 

Here is the full, detailed answer: 

I do. I do visit doctors. 

They get some tests done, look at them, and tell me, "Maybe it is stress? All the reports are normal." 

One doctor went on to say, "I honestly don't know what is wrong with you. I cannot help you." 

That's it. That's the only answer I have got from doctors. Either this, or the prescription of medicines that my body did not need. 

I have two autoimmune disorders that got diagosed - not by going to doctors for 12 years, but from an online support group. They kept pumping antibiotics into me even when all the culture tests came back negative. A two hour Google search told me about both options - film covered bacteria and auto immune disorders. I read more patient records and figured I was closer to the auto immune issue than the film covered bacteria. Went to a homeopath who thankfully heard me out and was open enough to say, "Yes, i think you might be right. Let me prescribe medicine for this and lets see how you respond."  No allopath even listened to patient concerns. 

All allopathic doctors do is follow protocol. 

If your child has fever, we assume viral and wait for 3 days before giving antibiotic. 

Google or AI can do this IF-THEN-ELSE better than you. 

Your job, as the doctor, is to KNOW when a child is not doing so well and when they need to start antibiotics. 

Your job, as the doctor is to listen to the patient and go beyond the protocol. 

For that to happen, the pharma industry has to stop dictating protocols. 

You, as doctors, need to fight to remain relevant. If you allow your wisdom to be taken over by protocol, then those years of practice amount to nothing. 

If you don't tell the patient whether a certain drug causes thrombocytopenia, the patient will find out online - in 30 minutes vs the two it would have taken you to tell them. 

There is something to be said for kirana stores.

I don't think the consumer should celebrate the end of kirana stores or the rise of Quick Commerce.

For these reasons:

1. It is only a matter of time before a health emergency happens (rats, yes). If you enter a warehouse, you will not be able to order from quick commerce again. By the way please do wash everything you get from quick commerce. Keeping the dark warehouse rodent free is not in anyone's KRA. Let that sink in. There are no health and safety standards applicable to these warehouses.

2. It was exactly like this before Covid. Then Covid happened and the local kirana stores sustained us. Like typical humans, we paid back with inbuilt ingratitude.

3. The customer is killing something that is both convenient and sustainable. The customer is creating monopolies. Then cribbing about high delivery charges is what use? You killed the competition and ensured enough reliance on this business model to make them monopolies. The customer literally is giving their choice away.

4. Creating 10,00,000 delivery partners who are not able to do justice to their basic health is good for whom? Lazy customers? Because this kind of work culture for 10,00,000 people is not good for society overall.

5. We underestimate the importance of stray conversations in combating loneliness. I buy most of my stuff from real retail stores and cannot overstate the importance of these connections. Pharmacist - 18 years. Stationery store - 21 years. Grocery store - 21 years. Optician - 10 years. Sabziwala - 4-5 years for one and nearly 10 years for another. Appliance and Electronics Store: 20 years. Sanitary Supplies: 15 years. They know me. I know them. Now, we also know each other's children. (The concept of 'strokes' was explained by Dr. Eric Berne in Transaction Analysis, in case you are looking for theoretical proof).

6. In Arthashastra, Chanakya says - Vyavhar is only among equals. A strong king and a weak king do not 'negotiate'. The stronger king sets the terms and the weak king accepts them. If you take a bread back to your kirana wala and say this was stale, he will quietly take the bread back and give you a fresh one. Try doing that with Zepto, Blinkit, Swiggy, Zomato. You cannot negotiate with big kings. You can only put up with them. Do not create behemoths - because they are detrimental to your own welfare. Nurture equal stakeholders.

Like AI, you can either hate or love QCommerce, but you cannot avoid it. Like AI, you can decide how much of it you want in your own life.

Introducing: The Circle of Integrity

We all know the comfort zone - that area where we feel, well, comfortable. We are all encouraged to get out of the said comfort zone to experience and learn new things. 

Today, I want to write about another zone - the integrity zone. I will call it the circle of integrity. 

The comfort zone is what you are good at, what you enjoy. The Circle of Integrity is WHO YOU ARE.

Our comfort zone is more or less understood and visible. But the Circle of Integrity is a larger, largely invisible circle. 

 Stepping outside the comfort zone leads to some form of growth. Stepping outside the circle of integrity gnaws at our core. It is what leads to an emptiness inside even when, on the surface, everything looks good. 

The reason that some new things lead to happiness and some others lead to a growing sense of isolation and discontent is this. The things that are outside the comfort zone but inside the circle of integrity - these are the things that lead to personal growth. The things that lie outside our circle of integrity are the ones that might look like growth, but are, in fact, the things that will make us unhappy, because they do not align with who we are. Because the circle of integrity is invisible, only the person knows when they are doing something that goes against their grain. No one outside can tell or even know. 

The trouble is, we are often asked to step outside our comfort zone, but because we don't know about the existence of the larger circle, we don't even know when we are stepping out of that. The concept of comfort zone is ubiquitous, but no one teaches us about the circle of integrity - the importance of knowing, and remaining true to oneself. 

There are many reasons that one might have to step out of the circle of integrity - fitting in with a new group of "friends", doing things that the job requires us to do, joining an activity or other club where certain kinds of behaviour are 'normal'. 

How to tell if it is outside the comfort zone or the circle of integrity? Both changes feel like discomfort. 

Only at the very start. If something feels like it goes against your grain, don't give it too long. I left a toxic workplace because I knew that irrespective of growth, this place will not make me happy. 

It is good to get out of one's comfort zone and broaden one's horizons. But it is equally important to understand what you are NOT and remaining true to yourself. 

Why we need to see all sides of the story

 The only thing that is one sided is a billboard. Even a leaf in a book has two sides.

So when you find yourself supporting one side in the story, what you are seeing is not a story. It's a billboard.

Film Review: CTRL on Netflix in India

Watch this film NOW. Not as a fiction film.

Here is the "review" element of the post:

The editor of the film had the capacity to make it an 80 minute film. Or less. I wish they had worked a little harder.
The performances are adequate.
The story telling is engaging. Not as taut as it could be. But engaging. One doesn't look away that much (at the phone, what else?)
The background score and cinematography both delight. I loved the AI avatar being put on screen again and again.
My favourite dialogue in the film (mostly because I keep saying it all the time): Please, please make an informed decision. Aap ek baar proofs dekh lijiye. (Joe's words from his last video).
The dialogues are not too witty. They are just realistic. A little extra work there would have led to some chuckles.
Joe is super cute!

This film does not deserve to be watched or reviewed as a fiction film or sci-fi.

Nothing shown in the film is in the realm of sci-fi. It is possible today. And much of it is happening (minus the idiot looking avatar. They don't need the avatar. They have the feed).

Then ask yourself:

1. Can I live my life without social media?

2. Am I aware of how much social media controls my thoughts? What I see in news, What i think about, which friends I get to see, which ones are ignored, what I (think I) choose, even what makes me feel good and what makes me feel bad. Who decides if you are on the side of Russia or Ukraine? Your feed. You never make the effort to read about the other side's perspective.

Think hard. Think very, very, very hard.

And you will realise why this is a very real cautionary tale.

You don't have to believe me, read what the experts said at the last International Dialogues on AI Safety (Venice, Sep 2024):

https://idais.ai/idais-venice/

Now, give this film to your teens.

Someone wrote about Insta putting teen controls in place. Let me add to that story. The CEO of Meta was summoned by the Congress. Behind him were parents whose kids had been severely harmed or died because of Insta. DIED. He did not bother to look at them. Finally, he was asked to turn around and apologise to them. He had to be asked TWICE before he turned.

THAT is the most haunting Big Tech video for me. This CEO, who KNEW his app was killing young people, not only did nothing to stop, but continued to promote the same algo changes. Without a pause.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwtYBPcTVPw

Sorry to break it to you, folks, but NO One has your back. No one is looking after your kids. There is no liability. Even the US Congress cannot protect our children (or us). Therefore, Watch CTRL, and as Joe says, make an informed decision.

That late self realisation

As a child, I used to be very distracted. It was easy to remember things, but really hard to focus! 

Like, I would be listening to my teacher explain the chapter in class, but my fingers would be writing poetry at the back of the book instead of making notes as she wanted us to do. The teacher would stop in the middle and ask me a question about the lesson. I would give the right answer. The teacher would have a flicker of self-doubt on her face. but would go back to explaining the chapter. I could never write those notes as intended!!! This happened most in History, English, and Hindi - all my favorite subjects, making the guilt index soar even more. 

***** 

Many years later, in office, I would get bored in meetings and conferences. So, while other people nodded sagely at the speaker, I would pick up a pad and start designing dresses and furniture. The meeting/conference and its sounds would be in the background and my focus would be on the dress being drawn - its colours, materials, thickness of piping and type of lace. 

But at the end of the meeting, I would make the Minutes accurately and ask relevant questions. Folks who could see I was distracted would not know how to get back. It was true. I was distracted. All the time. 

 ****** 

Until, one day, I realised, that the distraction was not distraction. It was a memory technique! When I look at the doodle, I can remember every single word that was said in the meeting. What's more, I can remember what was being said by who as each line was being drawn. All I had to do was to go over the doodle in the order in which it was drawn. Each leaf, each border, each silhouette, and each shading pencil stroke brought alive the words being spoken in the background. 

And that was how I accepted my lifelong distraction. Instead of feeling guilty about "being somewhere else", I started feeling comfortable in my skin. From being the person who is always distracted, I accepted self as the person who is "differently attentive". 

Why am I writing this now? 

Many of us find young people who are distracted or in their own worlds. I was blessed with a kind world. Teachers who never scolded for incomplete notebooks, nor suspected me of cheating when the marks came ok. Colleagues who saw me draw on and managers who did not say anything. Even I did not realise that the doodling was helping remember until much, much later. So, I kept judging myself for being so distracted all the time.  

I would like the post to perhaps create a kinder world for someone out there. Even if they have not yet figured it out, maybe its something that helps? 

*********** 

On an unrelated note, this could be the reason, but I didn't realise it then, or for the next 30 years: 

One day, I started a self-paced course on speed reading. In those days, these courses were delivered via books. The book started with FAQs before delving into the techniques. One of the questions was - 

Will it affect my comprehension if I speed read? 

The answer: 

If you are not understanding, it is not speed reading. Reading implies comprehension. But, speed reading will not reduce your comprehension, it will increase it! The human brain is capable of much more action than our senses can give it. When you read at 250 words per minute, your brain has free capacity to be distracted and therefore you may not understand so well. When you are reading at 2000 words per minute, there is no capacity for distraction. Therefore, you will understand BETTER. 

That seemed contrarian, but I tried it anyway, and realised that it was right!! At 1500 wpm, I was understanding better, but was also exhausted at the end of the reading.