Why Well Informed People Go Silent At Times? The Ill Informed Need to Evalute Their Choices

Often well informed become silent in the wake of mass hysteria, or abuse for dissenting opinion or when binary arguments become order of the day. They know they can never make the arguments acerbically nor they can invoke passions to convince others of their arguments.

Mark Twain has beautifully summarized this predicament in his novel `A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’

        Quote

        Everybody around her believed in enchantments, nobody had any doubts; to doubt that a castle could be turned into a sty, and its occupants hogs, would have been the same as my doubting among Connecticut people the actuality of the telephone and its wonders and in both cases would be absolute proof of a diseased mind, an unsettled reason. Yes, Sandy was sane; that must be admitted. If I also would be sane-to Sandy-I must keep my superstitions about  unenchanted and unmiraculous locomotives, balloons, and telephones, to myself. Also, I believed that the world was not flat, and hadn’t pillars under it to support nor a canopy over it to turn off a universe of water that occupied all space above; but as I was the only person in the kingdom afflicted with such impious and criminal opinions. I recognised that it would be good wisdom to keep quiet about this matter, too, if I did not wish to be suddenly shunned and forsaken by everybody as a madman

Unquote

        It is not just the duty of the well informed to speak up, it is a bigger duty on part of the ill informed to re-evaluate the choices they have made, the people they have believed, the promises that were made, how much of that has been fulfilled, and what is the reality. IF WE KEEP FALLING IN THE SAME TRAPS OR FOR the SAME LIES, WE ARE GOING TO BE HEADED NOWHERE. CRITICAL THINKING IS ENOUGH, NO NEED FOR AN INTELLECT.

Airtel Customer Service Sarcasmed By A Customer

Mark Twain Throws Hints On How You Can Use Crowds To Control Opinion?

                Have you noticed the fake ring seller or the spurious herb seller? Have you not read about the ponzi scheme owner vanishing into thin air with crores of money of people? Are we not witness people believing fiction when it is told forcefully and with all oratory in command? Are we not aware of people being promised the moon, getting themselves into a crater, and accepting that as moon, because they believe the person who’s telling it?

                Why do they do it? Only because they don’t know how to critically analyse what is being told to them. Also some of the pathological liars are able to create such a hype and backed by vociferous supporters that what is being told is true, and those who don’t believe it are anti-society. Such people may seem mad but they are not.

                Read this passage from `A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’ by Mark Twain, you will appreciate how critical is critical thinking in a society or else the society’s mental heal will become critical.

                I had to put myself in Sandy’s place to realize that she was not a lunatic. Yes, and put her in mine to demonstrate how easy it is to seem a lunatic to a person who has not been taught as you have been taught. If I had told Sandy, I had seen a wagon, uninfluenced by enchantment, spin along fifty miles an hour, had seen a man, unequipped with magic powers, get into a basket and soar out of sight among the clouds, and had listened, without any necromancer’s help to the conversation of a person who was several hundred miles away. Sandy would not merely have supposed me to be crazy; she would have thought she knew it. Everybody around her believed in enchantments, nobody had any doubts, to doubt that a castle could be turn into a sty, and its occupants into hogs.

                The last sentence is very crucial. Crowd controls the opinion of most people, and if you can control the crowd through typical methods, you can continue to fool people for all times.

Did George Orwell Set The Tone For Patriotic Citizens Of The Future?

This portion from George Orwell's Classic `1984' takes the cake for psychism in Fiction

`Smith!’ screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen ` 6079 Smith W! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You’re not trying. Lower, please! That’s better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me’

                A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston’s body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above her head and – one could say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency – bent over and tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.

`There comrades! That’s how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again. I’m thirty-nine and I’ve had four children. Now look’ she bent over again ` You see my knees aren’t bent. You can all do it if you want to’ she added as she straightened herself up `Anyone under forty-five is perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don’t all have the privilege of fighting in the front line, but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our boys on the Malabar front! And the sailors in the Floating Fortress! Just think what they have to put up with. Now try again. That’s better, comrade, that’s much better.’ She added encouragingly as Winston, with a violent lunge, succeeded in touching his toes with knees unbent, for the first time in several years 

1984 by George Orwell - Extracts From A Classic - Part I

         
      1984 by George Orwell reflects what happens when a society is over charmed by the guiles of a single individual, and false nationalist thoughts. The novel is a must read of all those who believe in democracy yet driven by idol worship and ultra nationalism. It requires one intelligent crook to take over such a democracy and dismantle the democratic institutions. Let us be aware of the fact that democracy is vital to survival of the human race not the infrastructure, the grow rates, the jobs, or any other parameter. 1984 by George Orwell is a wonderful read for anyone whose thoughts begin to veer away from democracy. Presented in the subsequent paragraphs are some thoughts which hit me like a hurricane.

                This is what most bigots tell you

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

This does ring a bell…..

The Ministry of truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace,  which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak; Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.

Some democracies are headed here….

This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws) but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced labour camp.

                Either the future would resemble the present, if which case it would not listen to him, or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.

There is no shortage of such individuals in certain democracies

                It was curious that he seemed not merely to have lost the power of expressing himself but even to have forgotten what it was that he had originally intended to say.

It helps to create a popular enemy for dictators like Big Brother….

                Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the two minutes hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the party’s purity.

The obligatory display of patriotism, maybe even for half of the duration…

                The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in.

Generating the mass hysteria

                At this moment, the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical chant of `B..B!, `B..B! with a long pause between the first `B’and the second. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion.

Have we not heard it before

                Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for every. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.

All in the name of progress

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

How important is privacy?

                Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there was still privacy.

Ha, Ha! One day be in bed with the enemy and the next day breathe fire

                The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible

If the rulers don’t have an illustrious  past, either defame those who have had a glorious past or insert a favourable past for yourself or apportion someone illustrious from the past to the rulers

                `Who controls the past’, ran the Party Slogan `Controls the future, who controls the present controls the past’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. `Reality Control’ they called it; in Newspeak, `doublethink’

Looking For Venture Capitalists To Invest In My Matriomonial Website Ideas

The inventor of internet would have never imagined one day it will become omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. Today life without it cannot be conceived. Governments swear by it, and those who swear against the government also use it to swear against the government.

                When matrimony became available on the net, I first thought it was a fad that will die away without a trace; however, I was proved wrong. The growth of matrimony on Internet in India is only rivaled by memes. What is pitiable is the plethora of community based matrimonial websites that are available. C’mon give me a break, people use a technological invention made by a person who doesn’t belong to their community, to keep alive their community.

                I hate community based marriages next only to fairness creams. Marriage is just a meeting of bodies to continue the human race, emotions apart. If I was a billionaire, I would create a plethora of matrimonial websites which would go like this:-

i.                     Free wifi hunters please marry.com

ii.                   Vegans who hate vegetarians matrimony.com

iii.                  Part time vegetarians get married.com

iv.                 Grammar nazi met your match.com

v.                   Party Gate Crashers get wedded.com

vi.                 Duck Faced Selfie Fans Get Hitched.com

vii.                Snap chat users marriage.com

viii.              Get Drunk and remain wedded. Com

ix.                 Indian Best Selling Authors Fans Make Your big Mistake.com

x.                   Momos Lovers Shaadhi Kar le .com

xi.                 DSLR Dummy Photographers Get Clicked.com

xii.                Startup Owners Start Living together. Com

xiii.              Cab Sharers Share Your Life.com

xiv.              Online Discount Seekers Get Discounted.com

xv.               Pathetic Marathon Runners Start A Life Marathon .com

xvi.              Sanskar Abusers Get A Life.com

These matrimonial websites seem a better idea of matching couples than based on caste, community, language, region and religion. Any VCs looking to invest in any one of these websites can leave behind an abuse in the comments column, I shall get in touch with you.

A Few Sights And Scenes Of Nainital, Uttrakhand

A Few More Laughs From ` The Small Bachelor' by PG Wodehouse

I have already posted on `The Small Bachelor' , but the laughs in this novel is unlimited. Despite posting in two parts, a third part is fully loaded

http://balu036.blogspot.in/2017/04/my-favourite-book-of-p-g-wodehouse-is.html

http://balu036.blogspot.in/2017/04/time-and-distance-problems-made-fun-of.html

Here is the final instalment but this is just a tip of the iceberg of this funniest novel by PGW

This is the last place you should be proposing to a girl

                `Well, anyway, we walked around for a while, looking at the animals, suddenly he asked me to marry him outside the cage of the Siberian yak’

                `No, sir!’ exclaimed Sigsbee H, with a sudden strange firmness, the indulgent father who for once in his life asserts himself `When you get married, you’ll be married in St Thomas’s like any other nice girl’

                `I mean it was outside the cage of the Siberian yak that he asked me to marry him’

                Why do parents especially mothers of beautiful girls entertain such thoughts about their daughter’s lover?

                George was not vain, and if Molly’s stepmother had been simply content to look at him as if she thought he was something the cat had dragged out of the dustbin, he could have borne up. Her whole attitude betrayed her belief that the cat, on inspecting George, had been disappointed. Seeing what it had got, her manner suggested, it had given him the look of chagrin which cats give when conscious of effort wasted and gone elsewhere to try.

                What a definition of marriage!

                Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies the corpse.

                Can hatred towards an individual be expressed in a better way?

                What on earth was the use of trying to be optimistic about a world which contained people like Hamilton Beamish?

                Why else do they say Love is Blind, it can make the most logical of men go bizarre!!!

                Hamilton Beamish had been listening to these exchanges with a rapidly rising temperature. His heart was pounding feverishly in his bosom. There is no one who become so primitive, when gripped by love, as the man who all his life has dwelt in the cool empyrean of the intellect. For twenty years and more, Hamilton Beamish had supposed that he was above the crude passions of the ordinary man, and when love got him it got him good. And now, standing there and listening to these two, he was conscious of a jealousy so keen that he could no longer keep silent. Hamilton Beamish, the thinker, had ceased to be; and there stood in his place Hamilton Beamish, the descendant of ancestors who had conducted their love affairs with stout clubs and who, on seeing a rival, wasted no time in calm reflection but jumped on him like a ton of bricks and did their best to bit his head off. If you had given him a bearskin and taken away his spectacles, Hamilton Beamish at this moment would have been prehistoric man.

                An individual’s lack of intelligence cannot be said more funnily

                Sigsbee H Waddington, as has perhaps been sufficiently indicated in this narrative, was not a man who could think deeply without getting a headache; but even at the expense of an aching head he had been compelled to do some very deep thinking as he journeyed to New York in the train.

                The Thumb Rule to a Happy Married Life

                `I’m always right’ said Fanny, giving her husband’s cheek a loving pinch `That’s the first thing you’ve to get into your head, now you’re a married man’

                A philosophical thought on morality

                The instinct of self preservation not only sharpens the wits, but at the same time dulls the moral sensibility.

                 An insensitive person cannot be described better

                Deaf persons had always irritated her, for like so many women of an impatient and masterful turn of mind, she was of the opinion that they could hear perfectly well if they took the trouble.

                PGW has a way with explaining the fairer sex’s tyranny….

                She drew away. She was not normally an unkind girl, but the impulse of the female of the species to torture the man it loves is well known. Women maybe a ministering angel  when pain and anguish wring the brow; but, if at other times she sees a chance to prod the loved one and watch him squirm, she hates to miss it.

                … or expressing the superiority of the male.

                The girl eyed him worshipfully. One of the consolations which we men of intellect have is that, when things come to a crisis, what captures the female heart is brains. Women may permit themselves in times of peace to stray after sheiks and look languishingly at lizards whose only claim to admiration is that they cannot go the first three steps of the Charleston; but let matters go wrong; let some peril threaten; and who then is the main kingpin, who the main squeeze? The man with the Eight and a Quarter hat.

                A man cannot be more determined than this…

                A cyclone might shake this man, but not the human eye.

                

The Beauty Of Nainital Lake

Dudes And Birds Of Nainital