Philosophy

I think Philosophy is the most abused word in India,everybody uses it without even caring about the meaning of it. I understand the real meaning and implications of it after reading Ayn rand's Philosophy who needs it. It is the best non-fiction novel I have read till date.
If you think philosophy is a boring thing which has nothing to do with concrete real world issues which you face read the following para from Ayn Rand.

" You might claim--as most people do--that you have never been influenced by philosophy. I will ask you to check that claim. Have you ever thought or said the following? "Don't be so sure--nobody can be certain of anything." You got that notion from David Hume (and many, many others), even though you might never have heard of him. Or: "This may be good in theory, but it doesn't work in practice.You got that from Plato. Or: "That was a rotten thing to do, but it's only human,nobody is perfect in this world." You got that from Augustine. Or: "It may be true for you, but it's not true for me." You got it from William James. Or: "I couldn't help it! Nobody can help anything he does." You got it from Hegel. Or: "I can't prove it, but I feel that it's true." You got it from Kant. Or: "It's logical, but logic has nothing to do with reality." You got it from Kant. Or: "It's evil, because it's selfish." You got it from Kant. Have you heard the modern activists say: "Act first, think afterward"? They got it from John Dewey.Some people might answer: "Sure, I've said those things at different times, but I don't have to believe that stuff all of the time. It may have been true yesterday, but it's not true today." They got it from Hegel. They might say: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." They got it from a very little mind, Emerson. They might say: "But can't one compromise and borrow different ideas from different philosophies according to the expediency of the moment?" They got it from Richard Nixon--who got it from William James." (Ayn Rand)

So you don't have a choice of not having a philosophy,either u decide that ur conciseness guide u towards a rational philosophy or let the mindless generalizations guide you .

The best way to develop your philosophical knowledge is reading Ayn rands "Fountainhead' and 'Atlas shrugged ' which are fictional novel setup in a philosophical background. I didn't see any one even attempting to write a 1000 pages novels where the conflict between antagonist and protagonist is meta physical (philosophical).As the story was setup with real life characters we will be able to visualize the impact even though we may not understand the implied philosophy.

Money never sleeps

Today I watched a movie called Wall Street (II) which is quite fantastic for people who are involved with stock markets ,may be not a great watch for other people as the director presumes that knowledge and doesn't try to explain on that front.We may not be able to compare this with the first part but the movie shows the economic situation quite brilliantly.Micheal douglas performance is as fantastic as part I. First half of the movie, bear sterns sellout scenes are quite good but second half especially the peak of the crisis is not captured properly. When you saw the movie you realize that how cinematic  the economic crisis is. It has good beginning ,buildup and a fantastic climax.

When I first saw the first part of the Wall street(1987) in 2007 I just blown away by the characterization and performance of Micheal Douglas. Even though the movie is quite average till the Gekko character enters ,with the entrance of Douglas  the movie will go into another league.I didn't saw in any other movie even remotely portraying a character like Gekko. When he explains with reasons that "the greed is good" not only the characters in the movie but the audience also will become dumb enough to believe so. 

Enjoy the clip here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7upG01-XWbY

RK

Anti knowledge

Anti knowledge is not just the non useful information it's some thing which make the useful information unusable by providing wrong info.

When u search something in Google how much useful info we get may be 2-3 in 10 which means 70-80% are crap. Google continues to evolve its search to find good info and the anti knowledge continues to evolve keeping the same ration intact. This makes user who can exactly distinguish between them can only move forward.

If you see any business Chanel any time if one expert say enthusiastically to buy a share ,other expert will say with same energy to sell (with a valid reason) making both of their arguments useless unless you have some knowledge to distinguish between them.

If you take any group discussing any topic and one person asks abt the reason for anything some one will say we can't look for reason in every thing making whole discussion useless .

Knowledge continues to grow up and at the same time the anti knowledge will continue to grow exponentially . Which continues to makes personal skill more valuable

I used to wonder why the salaries of knowledge professionals were going up when the tech products prices are going down. And why the companies should pay handsome salaries when all the knowledge(information) is available for free in Net.It may be every companies/managers dream to have the knowledge in that way so that they can simply replace the employees with dolts, But this may not happen any time mainly because of the anti knowledge.

If you think the above content is not adding any knowledge to you feel happy as this may be contributing to the anti knowledge and increasing you pay check :).

Ravikanth

First blog

This is my first blogpost after a long time. As I was in a job which needs little use( too little to quantify say equal to atom) of mind ,so thought of doing something less boring(typing is really boring). This blog is mostly abt my life , my universe and everything abt me. Hmm may be not exactly but I liked the book "life universe and everything" by douglas adams and invested a lot of time in reading it so I am going to keep the same even if it doesn't make any sense.

Importantly I want to keep a trail of my thoughts which are quite random and unpredictable. Let me see how many days I can continue.

I read a lot of books mainly in the philosophical,financial and technical genres . Which I believe are absolutely necessary for any one who want to lead a happy life(I think government should change the education system in this lines :-)).