Arjun Yadav's Webpage

Trade War? Nothing Ever Happens

Unknown — Fri, 30 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

There seems to be a sense of fear among many regarding the prospect of global trade as the result of the ongoing trade war and the war cry of "we want to be self reliant economy with indigenous products" by many countries. This fear, predominantly driven by mainstream media, has led many to take pessimistic view on global trade so much so that even the educated ones in the field of finance are recommending to take money out of various investments and put that money into some glittering yellow stone called gold. USA which was once considered to be the defacto place to park your money during global turmoil has now made some experts recommend gold over it due to this trade turmoil and uncertainty. Apparently this yellow overpriced, overhyped, soft as butter, useless in a zombie apocalypse, piece of stone has more value for some reason than the birth place of my friend's favorite Taylor Swift. This is evident if we compare the growth in gold prices vs US stock market index in last one year. It is not only the increasing demand for gold as a safe store of value but the distrust by investors in existing global trade system can also be seen in increased trade in alternate assets such as Bitcoin whose value is all time high.

But I am not writing this to amplify the ongoing pessimism or to give you any investment advice or speak about the 'nEw wOrLd OrDEr'. What I am trying to say is how irrelevant this trade war and indigenous/self-reliant drive is for the long term optimistic prospects of the global trade. Let me address both of these points one by one.

"But we are at a trade war"</h3>
Nations have always tried to increase their trade surplus, hence there is nothing new or surprising with that but this inherent characteristic became 'the trade war' when the two biggest economies viz US and China came face to face for economic and geopolitical reasons. However, the sheer share of these two economies in global trade ended up evolving the rest of the world as their battle ground. Hence the name 'global trade war'. From the Trump's perspective the world has taken an unfair advantage of USA's free market and that's why USA is having consistent trade deficits for years, no actually for decades now. China being one of the biggest trade partner with USA has the biggest trade imbalance with it (-$279 Billion!). For once US can accept its fate and be okay with its trade deficits as it is nothing new for it at this point. Pretty much a normal thing since 1990s. But the fact that China is having trade surplus after trade surplus is problematic since that collected wealth is being used against United State's interests in geopolitics. However, despite the current troubling situation the US-China trade relationship was not always like this, just a decade or so ago they both took each other as respectable major trade partners, which they still are but without the respect part. The so called trade war between them started around in 2018 with the launch of new trade barriers. And ever since then trend of US trade deficit against China has almost stagnated if not increased (aggregate till now). And now after the 2nd term of Trump, his tariff warship strikes has left the world with uncertainty, fear and anger. That's why we see jump in the trade of gold and Bitcoin, both reaching all time high value, and being seen as alternate investments with good prospects amid global tensions.
However, there is one interesting thing, it has been almost 7 years since this trade war but the US's and its partners (EU) tariff weapons have done little to no harm to the aggregate China exports: in 2024 alone China had a $1 trillion trade surplus. And the answer to that is very much simple as stated by many, that China was able to reroute it supply chain from US and Europe to south east Asia and Latin America with an astonishing success and at such an ease that has surprised the policy makers of the west.
One more fear which looms among many is that US will use its power to kind of 'order' small economies to reduce their trade with China. However, the recent push by US to force Latin American countries to cut trade with China is not working either. For the Latin American countries, according</a> to OAS chief "Cutting china trade will tip Latin America into disaster". For the smaller economies which depend heavily on China and US exports equally, for them choosing one would not be acceptable. Apparently its not that easy of either of the countries to make big shift in global trade merely by force.
For USA however, playing this chicken game of tariffs to get a favorable situation for USA in trade is coming out to a somewhat as expected conclusion. US is too big of a trade partner for most of the world to just ignore, this can be seen in the number of countries who came forward to comply with Trump's demand of tariff reduction. India, Pakistan you name it! Seemingly the rich class of every country is forcing its diplomats to rush to US and cut the deal.
One more thing which puts faith in the better prospects for global trade in the recent times is the failed case of US and west's sanctions on Russia and Iran. To explain that let me first give you an historical example, almost 600 years ago when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, in order to take revenge from the Europeans which they disliked, the Ottomans imposed fees onto the European traders which used the the Silk Route. As a result the Portuguese were incentivized to develop new sea route to reach Asia which end up reducing the relevance of the Silk Route. And the Ottoman's attempt to power play failed. Clear example of "when there is a will, there is a way." The incentives or the will has always been high in the global trade. And the world is big enough to find ways with or without west's approval. The same has happened with Iran and Russia, that despite all the sanctions they are still being able to sell the oil using their shadow fleets which fall beyond the radar of the west. America is well aware of this fact I suppose that's why it's very less likely that they will risk forcing other big boys to make their own official silk routes which the US won't be the part of.
In respect of these events, my best educated guess is that the so called 'global trade war' is in its final stage. Beating China's manufacturing and global trade prowess is not that easy, the US has understood it. And the world has understood that treating US as a big cash cow is no more that easy either. I suppose in the long term we will look back to this trade war and say "oh yes at that time there was a minor tussle of trade but everything eventually came back smooth."

"But my leader said we will be self reliant economy with only indigenous products"</h3>
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There is nothing wrong with being self reliant and strong. But imagine, as an individual, if I say that I want to be self reliant and don't want to depend on others, to the extent that I will stop going to restaurant and make my own food. And vegetables? I will grow them in my own field. I will not consume someone else reels, I will make my own and doomscroll myself. Wait what? Sounds absurd, because it is. Self reliance is good but I can't do all by myself. At some point have to trust the division of labor. The same is true for nations as well.
This is basic commonsensical point, but for some reason there are people who have completely missed it. It is commendable to pursue self reliance on key products such as of military. But there is no way a country can be master of all trades. Despite having $1 Trillion trade surplus in 2024, China's total imports were more than $2.5 Trillion (More than India's combined Import and Export for the same year). Even if a country like china which amounts to approx 30% share of global manufacturing can't be completely self reliant then how can be others?
Moreover, it seems like the call to 'indigenous products' is more driven by political reasons than economic. For instance, when some countries told Apple that if they want to sell iphones in their country, it must have "Made in this banana republic" sticker on it. Apple had to comply with it in some countries. But did it really succeed? It turns out that essentially the iphones which were sold in the banana republic has a minimal value addition in the country, just final stage assembly and pasting of the sticker "Made in this banana republic".
Ironically the drive for indigenous products will end up increasing the global trade instead of reducing it. "We will make our own fighter jets and won't rely on the imports." Guess what the chips for you fighter jet will be coming from Taiwan, technology from Europe and duct tape to paste everything together and call it a jet from some other country. But that's good, if the country succeeds in producing a cheap yet better fighter jet, other countries will purchase it. But if it fails, that particular country will import it from the global market. A win-win situation for global trade prospects.
Nothing ever happens</h3>
Finally, with my best educated guess I can say that the mid to long run prospects of global trade are positive despite the ongoing tussle between various countries. Even sanctions and trade barriers becomes ineffective if the desire to do trade is high as we saw in the case of Russia and Iran. As more countries get affected by sanctions, the chances of the formation of new silk route looms, which the US won't have control on. US is smart enough to understand that. Hence, it is as eager to cut trade deals with sanctioned countries as the sanctioned countries are (we can see that happening with Iran).
The indigenous drive, whether it fails or succeed, will have the positive impact on global trade, as more you produce, more input you require, and good luck finding all the input in your own country.
Finally, of all the things that never gonna stop, global trade is never gonna stop the most.
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The new normal of being an employee

Unknown — Tue, 27 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Whether it's a government job or a private one, as long as it is a good job it takes a lot of effort from the side of the applicant to get it. But the similarities between both sector jobs end once the offer letter is received. I don't need to tell how a public sector employee's work differs from that of private as government job life is considered more often than not to be of comparatively less stressful than its counterpart. As a result of that such high proportion of youth especially in India put their efforts into government job exam preparation. No wonder why demand of such jobs far exceeds that of its supply. Irony of mixed economy is that everyone wants to consume the luxury and the comfort of Amazon service but no one desires to work in their factory. Neither do I, call me an arrogant employee but I would prefer to pee in a toilet instead of my water bottle</a>. Anyways, speaking of Amazon employees, so much has changed in just last few decades in the the job market, I mean India was essentially a socialist state prior to 1991 and till this day there still exists many Goliath size PSUs employing millions in the country. Back in the socialist economy almost everyone worked either in agriculture, the army or in PSUs, but things have changed now. Compared to public sector the private one has generated far more jobs and these changed times require different set of efforts from the side of employees because merely doing your 9-5 can end you up on streets. I will tell why, layoffs have become a norm and there is no guarantee that your company will continue to keep you in payroll the next month. Corporation can choose any excuse among many which it has on the table fire an employee. For instance, one of my friend lost his job because apparently he was getting paid more than what the company thought they would have to pay a fresher for the same job but performance wise he was doing good, the company instead decided to forced him to write the resignation email. Talking to people from different jobs have made me realize that such incidents are not so uncommon. That proposes some questions, that what all the other things one must do in addition of 'clocking the job' to sustain in such uncertain times where unlike PSU's there is no safety net? For now I have been able to find four such areas where many are already working:

Skill Maxing</h3>
For once HR or the line manager might consider an employee to be human with feelings but for the business, which only sees problems and employees to be the solution provider to those problems, for that business an employee is a tool. And we know the quality of a tool is determined by its ability to solve problems effectively. Nevertheless we know that the problems a business faces are seldom static in nature. Hence, it requires the tool, I mean the employee to learn new skills to solve those new problems. And that learning is called skill maxing.
The Spinning Jennie initiated industrial revolution by increasing productivity in textile by replacing the traditional spinners and creating new roles in factories. AI is doing the same, see for instance, IBM recently replaced</a> hundreds of HR staff with AI but subsequently invested that amount in hiring even more engineers and sales staff to solve creative problems which is currently beyond relam of AI. Many jobs destined to get extinct but to compensate even more new jobs with different required skill set will come to existence, that's why it is one more reason why skill maxing is the new-normal for employees.

Performance at Job, duh!</h3>
What can be measured can be managed. Job KPIs do exactly that and it is the inherent characteristic of all the jobs however in some jobs the work can be measured more than the others, for instance sales job have clear cut targets to be achieved and in order to keep having the job they must be achieved. For once an employee may forget their loved one's contact number but their line manager will not let them forget the sales target. This is not only related to the sales job of course, as almost every single job has performance reviews which are directly tied up with the job continuity and promotion. This was/is however not the case with government jobs where there is almost an unspoken guarantee of permanent employment no matter what. But in a free market job one has to put some real effort to sustain the job. Nothing wrong with that, one agrees to the conditions of work and pay before joining, one must adhere to those. The only reason why I put this in new-normal is because there was no such condition in the socialist past of this country (which existed just few decades ago) but then again those were poor times plagued with inefficiency.
Side Projects</h3>
I have never met a single employee who doesn't dream of his 'own business' irrespective of the fact that whether they are currently working on that dream business or not. If not all but many certainly work, any person with hobby almost all the time has some side project going on. And this is significant too, a passive income is never a bad idea, more than that it is a safety net. Now I am not saying that every single side project must be for business, some may be just to showcase that you can build something significant. Like that yt-dlp opensource project the person with the name 'dstftw' has undertaken on Github. It seems like because of division of labor to such a big extent it has left people alienated with their own produce that they think of outside work to build something just for the sake of building something. Still, many are working on side projects to generate a source of passive income to make them bit more independent of the main job. But then again, some side projects can require more attention than what can be given to them as there is significantly less time left after doing day job and family work.
Networking</h3>
To be honest I don't know much about this term, I used to think it is something related to internet until Linkedin told me otherwise. Anyhow as cringe as it may sound it is one of the core activity of the new-normal environment for the employees. Imagine a situation where there is a relevant work opportunity in a company you like, the job matches your skill and experience but the moment you see the application stats it says "Job posted one hour ago, total applications are 369". In that situation you might be the right candidate but the chances that the HR is going to see your resume in that pile of resumes is quite less. What you can do? Well if some employee of that company is already aware about your skill set he can recommend you to HR. Good for you and good for the company, win-win situation. But it can easily turn into lose-lose situation if you don't have that contact. Having others know about your skill set is, I think, what networking is.
But there is some critique of networking as well on the fact that how it to commercialize the human interactions. Not much wrong with that by the way, but the fact that the only incentive to communicate with others is to derive some benefit out seems bit dystopian. But that again that's the nature of the beast, that's why personal life is set aside than business.
So what?</h2>
Yes, this is the new normal for employees, a consistent effort to be better and independent as an answer to uncertain, dynamic, competitive and dystopian future. There might be other tasks in addition to these but as far as I can understand deriving relevant outcome on each task seems a necessity to form a safety net because the 9-5 is no more the standard of stability. And merely clocking in and out to secure a job is the thing of the lost decades.

Of eunuchs and other tyrants

Unknown — Fri, 16 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Note: This is a satirical and critical opinion piece. It is not intended to offend or hurt anyone’s sentiments. The aim is to provoke thought about the nature of power and its unexpected manifestations.

The existence of hierarchy in humans is older than humans themselves and ever since there has been hierarchy there has always been someone on top - in power. All sort of people have been in power, some in the likes of Gandhi who propagated that "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind." And others in the likes of Genghis Khan who famously (infamously?) insisted that "The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to clasp to their bosom their wives and daughters." Despite these two ideologies being poles apart from each other, there is still something common between them: It was known with certainty that how their rule is going to be. I mean, for instance, the tyranny under the rule of Genghis Khan was already infamous. So when he robbed, raped and killed the invaded area it must've hardly came as a surprise to the innocent families of east Asia. Some estimates suggests that he impregnated thousands of females in the region, as a result there are about 16 million descendants of Genghis Khan alive today, a tyrant indeed!

But obvious is no interest. There is an expected tyranny and then there is unexpected tyranny. "What? ISIS rule in Syria unleashed a totalitarian theocratic and barbaric hell on innocents? Unbelievable." - said no one ever. I want to go beyond the obvious and highlight instances when seemingly innocent group with honest intentions which once got intoxicated with unaccountable power led to tyranny for the ruled. For instance the notorious rule of Eunuchs in 2nd century China.

Dogs and eunuchs have been a trustworthy ally of men for thousands of years. In China during old times the eunuchs always played a significant role in the imperial court. Since they were castrated they no longer had sexual feelings or ability. Hence, king would trust them near his wives. Also, not having a family and being solely dependent on King made them loyal too. However, in second half of 2nd century they used their proximity with kings to make their way to official titles. And what followed after that was something imagined by the king or anyone else - Eunuchs once in power, started selling official seats, killing Confucian officials. It was only after that, that the remaining bureaucrats and Confucian philosophers ran a coup against the tyrant eunuchs. Eventually the eunuchs were chased, burned alive and thrown out of the court.

Eunuchs were one of the many 'unexpected tyranny' examples. Even today there are multiple such groups, take for example the urban planning bureaucrats in India - they studied, passed competitive exams, citizens put trust in them but they end up forcing such urban planning design that if someone lives in a sector in India they would literally have to walk for at least 1km before they can see any sign of emergency/essential household items shop. And if you for some reason decide to open a shop inside a sector - boom! you are under arrest or under some bribe - they give you choice here. Compared to that in any organic village or town, which has not yet come under the tyranny of the bureaucracy, any shop would be at minute's distance.

Vegans! Who at first seemed to be cute, innocent and harmless people who were ordering egg-less cakes and quietly judging you for ordering an omelet to 'Chicken lives matter' kind of posts on Twitter to hindering people from entering into KFC to finally banning eggs from mid-day meals of public schools in India. From just a seemingly harmless preference of some individuals, once the vegans reached the level of unaccountable soft power where whatever they claimed was accepted to be morally correct, the tyranny of vegans end up snatching the only source of protein from the plates of poor Indian kids.

I don't think it is required for me to present more such examples, I made a simple and elementary point that as much as there are 'expected tyrannies' that are taking place around us so are equal if not more in numbers the 'unexpected tyrannies'. And that is the catch with the later, it is always unexpected, unpredicted - the tyranny is always in disguise of innocence, rationale and harmlessness. Hence, it becomes difficult to identify them. If Confucians with their independent thought process were unable to identify the tyranny of eunuchs in advance, what can we expect from an average? It seems like, to quote Blackadder, “the path of life is strewn with cow dung from the devil's own satanic herd.” And more often than not the dung is distributed by the very people who promised to clean things up.

War as the New Roman Circus

Unknown — Fri, 09 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

"Give them bread and circus and they will not revolt." said Roman poet Juvenal. "brooooo....!" probably replied the Roman king Maximus as the the idea to start Roman circus hit his brain. For 'games', there were many. For 'bread', it was already coming from Egypt. It was only the public unrest that was not in control, but the circus paved the way! Roman emperors started one of the first documented state-sponsored distraction to prevent any revolt from the public regarding growing inequality, poverty and political struggle.

However, moving forward to today the situation is quite different from what it was under the Roman rule. If any nation would want to try distracting its public from the real issues the traditional roman circus might not give the best results. For A- the population is way more and running so many real state sponsored circus might not be possible. B- People want consistent stimulation on their screens to be actually distracted. I remember reading somewhere that many people these days are doing something called 'casual movie watching' where they turn on their Netflix but do not actually watch the TV, instead they scroll on their phone while the movie is playing in the background. Such people would never show up to a state sponsored stadium to see random people running and jumping. Forget getting distracted by them!

Also, comparatively the basic public need of belly and mind (bread and game) has changed as more stimulant in both food and entertainment is getting demanded. I mean see people these days don't even laugh on the memes which were a major laughing stock in early teens. Try sharing an old meme and most probably you will get a reply that its a 'dad joke'. More and better source of entertainment is required as a true alternate of roman circus.

So exactly what an aspiring dictator or a failed state head should do to distract public? Movies, games and bread are already there but what if despite all this people have started to see the underlying problems of a state and have started to question? What should the head of a failed state do? And whatever circus he might start it must provide equivalent if not more stimulus which a roman citizen might have gotten upon seeing a man being executed by pulling apart by four chariots in the roman circus. So can a war be good alternate for roman circus in modern times? Che, the state head, start a war for public appeasement?

"Yes yes a war can make people forget about not-so-good things happening under my rule. and hatred towards enemy will give nationalism a rise in their hearts. War is the solution"- the head of a falling state may say - "But..but the war must be controlled if it escalates into a real war it might backfire me. But if it is controlled and less tense then it won't be much of an entertainment for the public. No no, the media is in my hand. Yes I will order them to exaggerate our military actions, undermine that of the other side's. And yes I must choose a weak enemy just in case. And if any international media starts to show alternate facts I will ban them. Moreover Twitter accounts of everyone from the enemy state will be in the banned list. Twitter follows rule of the land in which it operates. My land, my rules! ban ban ban! Haha I have solved this problem. Given them bread, will show them the game now, and they will not revolt."

Can such a thing work? Can war ever be used for mass appeasement? Is it being done? Has anyone ever done it? I don't know. But the basic idea that someone from middle class who wakes up at 10am on a fine weekend morning, on his cushiony bed, opens his twitter/TV and see stimulating visuals that his team is bombing and killing the enemy team. He enjoys this far-far away from the border where the real but controlled war is being fought, men are dying. Will the consumer of such state-sponsored appeasement stop for a moment and question about corruption and economic slowdown? He will continue the consumption and meanwhile the real condition of the state will keep getting deteriorated with more and more corruption, divide between citizens, income inequality, attack on free speech and more state control. This continuous public appeasement of war might condition the public to be hyper nationalistic and blood hungry that societal situation will go so down that even a literal war may seem least harmful thing happening at that point.

Who will be to blamed? The head of the failed state? or the consumer of such appeasement? Or maybe as long as this bread and game is going on no one will stop to blame anyone. News channels will get TRP, people the amusement and politicians the power.

Shoutout For The Walking Project

Unknown — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The most successful inventions are the one which becomes invisible after sometime. Think of comb for a moment and imagine a world where there is no comb. It is such a simple technology but it makes our lives so, so much better. Despite its significance we don't usually stop and think much about it. Quite understandable as comb is just one among hundreds of technologies we use every single day.

Moreover, comb is not the only technology which gets massively overlooked as there is one more successful technology with same fate which has been thrown to the annals of dark room especially if you belong to any country with basic infrastructure and citizens with common sense - footpaths.

Footpaths are simple technology yet they are able to save so many lives and makes waking safe and enjoyable. My praise for footpath might sound very much unnecessary for the one who is living in a better world where having footpath is just a fact of life. But someone who is not in such a condition I must share a horrifying fact which I got to know from Perplexity search - That in 2021 there were around 29,200 pedestrian deaths in India. TWENTY NINE THOUSAND AND TWO HUNDRED! Most of them could have been prevented if there were to be a working footpath infrastructure.

The last time when that many people died in a country it required modern weapons and an ruthless army. And at the end the whole world got to know about it. 29,200 people died in my country and my own countrymen don't talk about it. "Such a third world problem" you might say sitting in US and you would not be wrong in saying that, it is indeed a third world problem. It is third world not because of low per capita GDP but because of mental bankruptcy in civic sense. Comb and footpath are not much different in the sense that both are simple yet significant technologies. Both are invisible in first world. Footpath are also invisible in my country too but not because they are successful technology but actually you can't see them because they don't exist in first place. And if they exist they are usually not in condition to be used as they are often encroached, unmaintained, and there might actually be an open sewage on footpath it can be your free ticket to hell.

However, if we try to find why there is no basic footpath infrastructure in India the answer might come down to two reasons: 1- Citizens don't care. Even if there is footpath people are reluctant to use them. 2- If citizens don't want footpath, why should bureaucracy build them in first place?

"Why 29,000 people dying every year is not enough for the citizens to demand for footpaths and spread awareness?" Well I don't have the answer for that. It seems like Indians don't actually care and don't understand how big that number is. After all 29,000 is merely 0.000207% of 1.4 billion Indian population. Now you understand that these numbers are rookie numbers. These numbers might call for national emergency in US but no, not in India.

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Still, not everything is an episode of Black Mirror. Let me tell you why - Remember that brave thing trump said just a moment after a bullet kissed his ear - "Fight! Fight! Fight". Yes, that is the exact thing which 'The Walking Project'</a> is trying to do for creating "safe, convenient & joyful walking experience" in India by fighting for footpath infrastructure in Mumbai.

Now of course building basic footpath infrastructure is not rocket science but being able to do such a thing in India is no less difficult as it involves changing public conscience and a consistent battle with the world famous Indian bureaucracy.

Let me share one incident which happened with me:

Few months ago I walked into a UK based manufacturing company for a work meeting. After completion of the security procedure, I started walking on the road which was going straight to the building. As soon as I could finish 20 steps the security personnel screamed from behind "Anna bla bla bla" I didn't get his words but I understood his expressions "Anna, use the zebra crossing and then the footpath. Don't walk on the road, its for vehicles".

My Indian mind couldn't comprehend, for my whole life I walked wherever I could. This was new to me. But what was more interesting was once I crossed the zebra crossing and entered the footpath. 'Entered' because once you start walking on footpath there is no way out - the railings between footpath and the road prevents the walking person from getting back on the road. And also a safety measure in case some uncontrolled car jumps over the road and runs over the footpath.

For that one hour I had escaped India. It was a little bubble of a civilized country. What it took was basic infrastructure and common sense. Just that.

But life is again Indian outside those little bubbles. That's why what "The Walking Project"</a> is trying to do is something which I highly respect and I look forward to donating to them.

Over-Informed, Under-Informative

Unknown — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

What if your mind - and mine too - is like a box which can fill at any given point of time, at most, one thousand facts in it. It is a box, it has a limit on how much it can store. It is restricted by the space in it. Such that if you learn five new facts, your brain must dispose five older ones to make space for the new five facts. But ever since we were born our senses are feeding our brain with all sorts of information. As a result, every passing moment we are storing and discarding plenty information simultaneously. Now keeping the facts as they are, let me ask you, if you knew about this 'limited facts capability' of brain, would you still be engaging in deliberately collecting less important information? I am asking this because I am doing this all the time when I open a social media app.

You might rightly say that it's not actually how our brain works. You may be right, I have no study to back it up. However, common sense suggests that reality must not be far from the fact that we can store facts only to an extent in our brain. Moreover, if you still wish to criticize, this idea is not a creation of my mind, I merely copy pasta it from Sherlock Holmes.

We would surely come back to this question again. For now, let me share why I came up with this question at all. Do you remember those days when major chunk of our internet experience was to deliberately search a particular term on google and get the information we asked for? Like we would go on internet with a question or search query in mind, get the information and come back. And even the peculiarity of that activity is that you will only get the results which are related to your search query. The homepage of google.com will give you no other information but a search box which will take you to that corner of the internet you searched for.

Of course this is something which you still can replicate on google: Decide exactly what information you would want to consume. However, google is not anymore the only place where we generally spend our time on - Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Reddit etc. are the virtual places we also usually spend our time on. As you may already know that the bombardment of information which we get from these apps is the kind of information which we don't have much control on. For instance, lets say its evening time, you have yet to decide what to eat for dinner, and out of habit you open twitter for no particular reason, you land on the 'for you' page on the app. All of a sudden, 5 minutes down, you find your mind caught up in the latest controversy going on between two individuals and by this time you have read as many posts that now it is next to impossible not to take a side. Even though you didn't deliberately decided to get to know about this controversy. Nor did you put any keyword in the search box related to those people, but you now know lot of useless information about two groups fighting on internet for a topic which has no real life implication on you. But you have given enough attention to them that it has now taken over your mind. And what were you thinking about before opening the app? dinner? oops! 5 min twitter experience led to 30 min voyage for the lookout of new and hot information. Now you have no other option but to eat whatever is left in the fridge or just go out to some fast food chain - Where you will indulge into the consumption of the same controversy while your order gets prepared. Sounds like an extreme case? Well I am guilty of having this once. Or maybe even more times, I can't recall at this point. Scary!

Yes, I am not the first one to say these things. We all are aware about this already. At this point this phenomenon is part of almost all of our daily lives. We do get lot of unintended uninformative information. This fact alone might make us start think ill about these apps. But these apps are not entirely evil. I mean yes they do bombard us with lot of noise on 'for you' pages, but similar to 'for you' there is also this page called 'subscribed to' or 'from people you follow' where at least you know that you will only be getting information from the people you intentionally clicked on the follow button. Even though you don't have much control on what your following may post but you have a rough idea what it may be. While 'for you' will bombard you with whatever is trending currently (or something related to your previous engagement or some more stimulating and hot content).

Considering that, despite us knowing the destructive impact of such suggestive hot topics on our thinking, our rationale still fails us to deter us from opening 'for you' pages every time we get even minimally bored. What I have seen from my observations is that we generally tend to spend more time on 'for you' pages on Instagram and Twitter comparatively to the page which only gives feed from your following. Maybe because our rationale creates that facade of "oh by using these apps I am learning so much" - yeah lot of useless information. That makes me remind the quote that our mind is good at fabricating all the reasons to do the things which we want to do.

The reason behind spending so much time on 'for you' page might be that what we have on our 'followed page' is no more our actual interest. That we have have lost interest in the things which we have followed. Or it could be just that we are not at all opening these apps to get information. Rather to use these apps as time filler - stimulus giving - experience apps. It seems quite clear that in a situation where we are looking just to have an stimulus providing experience for the 5 min break on work, we couldn't care less about information or feeds from the accounts we follow. Au contrary, more spicy post means more engagement from our side.

But it can't be true for all the situations. Sometimes we do feel that the time spent on these apps are not wasted as we end up learning so many facts: A post about Trump's latest comments on Ukraine. Or how a human will die if he is left in space without any equipment for 5 minutes and so on. This is indeed some information. But are they really informative?

Now coming back to the question I had put in the start: If our minds can be filled with only a finite number of facts. And filling new facts requires getting rid of older ones. Despite this situation why do we continue to stack piles after piles of useless information by getting rid of some important facts? Or maybe if that is not how it works, then at least this mindless scrolling for sure takes our attention to the matters which are not related to our lives. Here I am not bashing social media, but only the aspect where unintended information takes our attention. If I am getting content from the people I follow, it would still seem fine. But for now, the 'for you' page has taken over my time. And I believe that I am not the only one who is battling this time-draining activity.

On the other hand the enemy marches towards you with relentless belligerence. There it comes glittering with its compact screen. With only minimal requirement to be activated. Always ready to please you with its package of stimulus bundled with useless information. Conquering that and moving to a more fulfilling option such as maybe reading a book - or conversation with other humans - will test your strength and belief in god. But rationality and comfort alone can't be relied upon to fight this enemy of rat in size, but mammoth in its strength. Where have the rationality and comfort have taken us if not on 'for you' page?

What's the job of a job?

Unknown — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Many know that Franz Kafka is famous for his writings, but few know that what was putting food on his table was his job of insurance agent not his writings. Similar was the situation for Ibn-Battuta. One of the greatest traveler in human history. Bro in his 30 years of travel crossed 75000 unbelievable miles in Asia and Africa! But travel doesn't pay, it was all sort of different jobs he did during his travels which kept him alive. He was working as a judge at times, but that's not what we normally remember when we hear the name Ibn-Battuta.

The garden of history is filled with such flowers where the job a job has only been to be used as a means to an end. Means to put food on the table, so that individual have enough energy and leisure to put work for passion.

But see even the husband of mother Russia - I mean Stalin the wife beater, was moonlighting as a bank robber alongside his comrades to fund the Bolshevik revolution. Even some high profile people who would later hold top positions in central committee were basically working as laborers, pulling barrow during their exile in western Europe for survival.

That's it for the history, coming to today, it would be wrong to say that everyone is doing jobs to fund bigger ambitions. Many are normal people who work for families. I want to share a small random interaction I had few days ago. So I was standing outside Domino's main door, waiting for someone to come. Standing there I was thinking about the exact pizza I should order, and all of a sudden someone opened the door. He must've been around 30, bald head, opened the door and said this to me:

"Bro you are also trying to apply for delivery?"

What? delivery? oh no no I am here waiting for someone.

"Okay, I thought you are. Anyways, are you married?"

Wait what? no. but why are you asking?

"I work as a mechanic at public transport department, the salary is merely 12,000. I got married recently, my wife is unable to adjust. They (Domino's) are saying that they will pay 30 rupees for each pizza delivery. I am thinking to work part time here after my day job." (He still said everything with a smile on his face. Hearing that made me feel sorry for him.)

But it is going to be difficult for you. Did you tell your wife that you will have to do two jobs for her?

"Women don't adjust these days. It was our parent's generation when woman would respect whatever man earned with hard work. These days they only see the amount of money you bring to home, not how you bring."

There was a silence for few moments. We shook our hands, he started waking away. As he walked I kept looking at him in sorrow and he kept disappearing in the ever increasing air pollution of the city. We don't know each other's name but that 2 min interaction was enough to understand each other and we became friends.

He is not alone, there are many men and women who show up to demeaning workplaces everyday just to support the family. And then there are the lucky ones - the sons of god - who are privileged enough to do the jobs they love. The jobs which are means and end in itself for them: Virat Kholi, Donald Trump, Musk and everyone who love their jobs and wish to continue doing so are blessed ones. American voters fired Trump after his first term, he faced two assassination attempts, still he continued fighting and came back doing the same job. We have to give this to him - because there is no way I can even endure a pepper spray to keep my current job.

"Oh oh but Arjun these are the top tier jobs, of course anyone would love those privileged jobs." Yes those jobs are for sure interesting. But there are also people who do normal small everyday jobs and still be happy. I personally know one janitor who is among the happiest and satisfied human I know of. Or you can just see this video of a happy 32 year dog walker</a> /s.

But of course majority of the people don't get that sort of joy doing their jobs. It is just the nature of the jobs. Speaking of nature, what's the job a lion? The lion preys on the zebra. Pretty clear means to an end. Prey (job) and get the zebra (reward). But what if the same lion wants to be the governor of savanna? Preying alone is not gonna help, the most it can do is to fill his belly.

Isn't this same for us humans? Sometimes we work, and that work can only do one thing: feed us for next thirty days until we get another paycheck. Now in this situation what is the job of a job? Just to feed you! It can't do anything more than that. But there exists even a worse thing which can't even feed you: A passion which can't pay (Probably because you suck at it). And I am no one to question your skills related to your passion here. My own writings are of such condition that they barely make much sense.

So what's the job of a job in the case where you are stuck in a soul-crushing, meaningless and uninteresting job but still have some spark for passion? What is the job of a job in that condition? to keep feeding you until you cease to suck at your passion. And then, the passion will feed you. And then, you will have a job you love. And then, it is a means and end in itself. And then, you can too face two assassination attempts in exchange of your job.

Very few, in actuality are able to do that, but if you are one of them who is stuck in some soul-sucking job and have a passion to do something relevant. I wish you all the best from my side :)

Trying to Fix Inefficient Vendor Meets

Unknown — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Bureaucrats are some of the most credible gang members as they seldom snitch on their collective wasteful activities. At this point it is a widely accepted notion that even the most fertile kind of land gets turned into most barren and lifeless one the moment it get touched by the bureaucracy. I believe, much has already been written about this peculiar characteristic of the bureaucracy. That's why today I want to write something very specific. Let's break the ice, in the last one year, because of my job I have had the misfortune of attending these government organized 'Vendor meets', 'MSME conclaves' (conclave for small businesses), investment summits' and (insert names for other events organized by the government to increase the collaboration between PSUs and private sector undertakings).

Investment summits and vendor meets are rare occasions when the government and private sector collaborate together to successfully organize an inefficient and wasteful event. If by any chance you have been to any such event, I am very much sure that you would agree with my last statement. Now I must say that the idea behind organizing such events is noble: To get investment for small businesses, improve PSU & vendor relationship by providing a platform to discuss possible issues. Not only that, vendor summits allows small and medium size businesses to present their product/service to officials of PSUs (public sector units). it is a dream opportunity for businesses to become a vendor to PSUs. Overall the idea is to strengthen the private sector with better collaboration with PSUs.

But despite having honest intentions, these summits are plagued with the inherent characteristics of good old bureaucracy. As I said in my first line that bureaucrats never snitch on each other, but since vendor meets are such occasions when both bureaucrats and private individuals are on the same stage, it becomes almost impossible to hide how carelessly tax payers money is spent while organizing such events. And let me just give you some examples to this before I try giving possible solution:

1- Expensive hotels In my experience of asking high ranking bureaucrats about what was taught to them during their training period, usually I get this sort of reply "We were taught about dressing sense, how to eat, different kind of spoons, table etiquette and so on basically they make us gentleman". Organizing any official event in a business like setting will be shame for their king size gentleman lifestyle. Hence, any vendor meet is usually organized in five star hotel where these professionally trained gold diggers can enjoy french bread with ten different spoons while they keep uttering rubbish to each other in their fake British accent while completely forgetting the real reason why the meet was hosted for.

I might have been bit harsh in the last paragraph, but seeing all this happening as a taxpayer is bit tough.

2- Merely a checkbox activity for bureaucrats

Okay see, Let me ask a business representative that with what goal he is attending such an event? "Well I either want investment or want new contact sighed from these government companies as I really want to become one of their vendors".

Now lets ask the same question to the bureaucrat as why did he attend such event? "Every year we have to organize two of such events that's why I am here." that's it. The only reason a govt. official might be attending a vendor meet or investment summit is because he has to. Apart from that there is no goal which he has to achieve by attending such event. If forced he might say that a free exotic lunch and a get together with his colleagues along with a day off work is his prime goal. But yes there are some officials who also have to give speech. The speeches which are, simply put, general off topic - self flattery monologues.

How things can be made better:

I might not be the expert on process improvement, but as a common man with some experience of attending such events in both public and private firms I can see two things which private companies have and government ones lack. These are the changes which can drastically improve the productivity of such government organized events:

1- Setting up of goals

No I am not asking our lord like bureaucrats to set performance goals and work. They are lords they should not work, they are above us taxpayers. But basic goals can be set before the initiation of the vendor meet or investment summit. Maybe the goal can be to improve lets say furniture procurement in a big PSU. The point I am trying to make for setting up this goal is that when this is shared to the vendors during to vendor meet, a productive discussion can be initiated. As vendors from different sectors are already there they can give some recommendations. But no, currently the goals are kept hidden in the muddy self flattery speeches given by the officials.

2- Reducing the number of bureaucrat attendees or making them accountable

It is the peculiarity of government enterprise to send three men for the job of one man. But what I have found is that this proportion goes to wild extent during vendor meets. I will give you one example. There was this vendor meet organized by one the the biggest PSU of my country, 60% of the seats in that 5 star hotel was occupied the bureaucrats. And no one but bureaucrats were allowed to present their ideas in front of the audience. At its peak it was like a meet setup by bureaucrats for bureaucrats, the only thing which was reserved for vendors was the name of the event "Vendor meet". But this was just the start, right before the lunch started the hotel was all of a sudden got invaded by at least a hundred other bureaucrats. And the most ironical thing was that it was the vendors who had to pay INR 3000 per head to attend the meeting. And the government employees following their peculiarity were free loaders. Well, there presence is enough I guess. So much presence that for every one vendor there were at least 10 bureaucrats during lunch time. Who decided to form their own high class groups keeping vendors aside from entering their 'gentleman conversations'.

I think this only happened because the officials who joined have no one to report to after the meet ends. While on the other hand each employee from a vendor company has to make a report, present it to the management, follow up with the opportunities and strive for closure. And what will those outnumbered bureaucrats do after the end of the meet? well they will probably go to their home and sleep on comfortable king size bed and perhaps think about the promotion which they are sure to get after the completion of 5 years as per government policy.

If and only if these officials can be held accountable, and responsibilities can be set to improve the procurement in their respective departments by making the current issues public to the businesses. If this is done the vendor meets and investment summits can serve the real purpose they were built for.

However, I must add that vendors are not dumb, they know how lazy and careless an average bureaucrat is. Vendor uses this loophole to sell overpriced inferior products to PSUs. Which ends up harming the taxpayer's money

As time proceeds and the facade of vendor and investment summits goes away, it is becoming the public knowledge that how inefficiently organized these events are. Recently in Bhopal they organized an global investment summit only to find out that during lunch there all brown global investors started to fight each other for plates. It is time that taxpayers should be banned from such government organized events. It is not in favor of the bureaucracy that tax payers will get to know how inefficient and wasteful bureaucracy is.

The subconscious thinking from the side of bureaucracy that taxpayer's money is an infinite resource with no responsibility on spending is what makes bureaucracy an unaccountable overspending behemoth.

According to BJP, investors signed MoUs worth 30.77 Lakh Crore in the Global Investor Summit in Bhopal this week.

Meanwhile investors: pic.twitter.com/S39DmfNMAb</a> — Congress Kerala (@INCKerala) February 26, 2025</a> </blockquote>