culture

Civilization - The Last of Us

Our Civilization & How Everything Could End

A nuanced study of our civilization has always appealed to my faculty, by connecting with multiple cultural conventions of diverse user groups through the prism of technology & design I can synthesize & draw conclusions from their unique behavioral & cultural patterns, so I was thrilled listening to an episode from the Software Engineering Daily (SED) podcast which reinforced my beliefs in that direction. It was in July that I stumbled upon Tim O’Reilly’s book What’s The Future (what a clever wordplay of WTF) and found a piece of ominous foresight by the author from the insightful podcast. He was responding to the question, How do you contrast the role of human agency versus the positioning of these technologies as being inevitabilities? And Tim responded with a sense of grim:

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You know, I think some ways this goes back to this disagreement I had many years ago with Ray Kurzweil. Where he would draw these graphs and say, “Well look, progress goes up into the right,” and I said, “Well, yeah, from a distance,” sure but you know, if you look for example at architecture, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was for a thousand years, the largest building in the world.

Because we lost the knowledge of how to build something like that. You could have on human time scales, an immense slowing down or reversal of progress. I think part of what we need to understand is that first of all, nothing is inevitable. I think that we face enormous discontinuities and anyone who looks at history will see those even in human timeframes where there were great empires that fell. Where there were civilizations that collapse and I don’t see any reason why ours might not be among them. In fact, I think it’s more likely than not that ours will be among them and so the notion of progress is also something that I think is profoundly suspect.

You know, are we really more advanced? If you think about adaptation to the environment, maybe humans are not so very advanced after all, we are kind of destroying our environment in 10,000 years of our rise and will we effectively foul our nest sufficiently that we won’t be able to continue to prosper?

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But then he describes, what I term as, his vision of an environmental catastrophe which could materialize as a result of a ‘climate change’ phenomena — a change in global or regional weather patterns attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels, which is demonstrating its ruthless power in real-time with the extended periods of hot summers or excessive rainfall to droughts in most parts of the world.

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I think I like to focus, yes, there are long-term trends that have momentum that have a powerful vector behind them but that doesn’t mean that they’re inevitable because first of all, there are other intersecting vectors. It’s so interesting, one of the said people I’ve invited to our science
bootcamp event or a couple of scholars who have been researching the interaction between climate change and the fall of civilizations.

Both of them – there’s a group at Harvard that has basically done ice cores in Greenland then it’s just basically correlated historical events through roman and early medieval civilization with climate change events. We have also one of the other people while study is the fall of ancient again civilizations and again, looking at the combination of climate change, you know, triggering a disease and then triggering migration, triggering warfare and that kind of being this toxic stew that brings civilizations to an end.

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That last bit of prudence in “triggering a disease” also brought flashes from the critically acclaimed action-adventure horror game ‘The Last Of Us’ the plot of which deals with a mysterious virus called Cordyceps ravaging the United States leaving not just an infected civilization but eventually destroying it; the premise of which is the effect of ‘climate change’. The game beautifully captures the mass migration of the survivors from coast to coast and puts the gamer in the midst of a warfare with rival gangs who are fighting for the control of rare resources in their neighbourhoods, not to mention combating the scary ghoulish creatures who prey upon their unsuspecting victims. It’s a captivating glimpse of a combination of catastrophic outcomes that O’Reilly has insightfully referred to in his prediction of how our civilization could end realistically.

The entire episode is worth listening and you can enjoy it in a new tab/window.

Who Can We Identify As An “Indian”?

Someone on the Internet responded to a rather contemplative question on who amongst Sonia Gandhi, Sundar Pichai, or Satya Nadella could be considered as ‘Indians’. But this individual’s answer extolled endlessly why Sonia Gandhi was an Indian but not the others who are business leaders on their own merits because today they’re Americans, also including some Nobel prize winners. I smiled because, in reality, I believe that they are all Indians! There’s always a broader perspective to such questions, but personally speaking, my understanding of this argument hangs on two parameters which pertain to ‘technical’ or ‘cultural’ viewpoints. Inasmuch as to call oneself belonging to a certain country relies strongly upon not just one’s nationality but also the genetic and cultural attributes, besides breeding a sense of pride in identifying ourselves with a certain country and culture regardless.

So technically, although she was born and raised in Italy Sonia Gandhi is truly an Indian national. In contrast, Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella are culturally Indians by birth and by race but not by their nationalities. Therefore, countless persons like Pichai and Nadella, whether they have settled in the US or relinquished their Indian citizenship, their genetic & cultural identification remains ‘Indian’ so long as they exist, and subsequently, their future generations would continue to display the Indian lifestyle depending on how they have instilled the values. Coming back to the issue of ‘technicality’ on nationalism, there was some certainty that scores of ‘Non-Resident Indians’ would have willfully also continued as ‘Indian’ nationals if India had recognized dual citizenship status, which is not the case today for political or historical reasons. And instead, these NRIs are recognized as having an ‘Overseas Citizenship of India’ and given an OCI card which is beside the point.

Would you die down as an ‘Indian’ just for relinquishing your nationality? Or would you continue to identify yourself culturally & genetically as an ‘Indian’ too? I would dare to characterize an ‘Indian’ as someone who belongs to India by birth, but also identifies with, adopts, and nurtures the ethos of India with its rich tradition, moral fiber, and the respective regional cultural values, anywhere that he or she chooses to call a home. Eventually, I feel, it is not just the Pichais or the Nadellas who are subjected to circle through such an unwarranted controversy, and to put it plainly, so long as their heart yearns for their roots anyone should be okay with recognizing themselves as an “Indian”.

About Stars and Hearts!

Twitter changed the icon for its ‘Favorite’ tweet feature, from a Star to a Heart. A seemingly small aesthetic change for the Twitterverse to react with surprise and angst! Design updates in digital products haven’t been easier for designers to interpret as organizations and users have embraced design changes half-heartedly for a number of reasons.

The longer a system exists the greater the amount of comfort and trust the users build around its framework. After all this the ultimate goal of following usability principles. These emotional aspects of user behaviour also exist even with badly designed systems. It means any amount of change in the system is met with shock and discontent by the user groups since they need to develop a fresh perspective around the brand. It’s not so simple to drive design changes.

Design transitions are also harder because it affects behavioural changes and users resist any change in their ‘relationship’ with the software overall. Twitter was perceived as ‘violating’ that loving ‘relationship’ of the users with the ‘Favorite’ starry icon by replacing it with a Heart. Though I personally believe that making a ‘favourite’ is a matter of the heart which is better represented by the ‘heart’ sign than a ‘star’ sign. In the end, designers must make users see the value brought by the design changes by bringing them closer to achieving their goals more efficiently than before. The aesthetic changes need to be scrutinized through a branding review as well. Twitter has done its homework:

The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.

The Pride of Maharashtra: 'Marathi Baana'

Frankly, I had not heard about this marathi musical until mom excitedly got the tickets for us. It’s called ‘Marathi Baana’ (Marathi Pride) and is playing to full houses all across the state (yesterday night was no exception). The 3 hour song and dance is a demo of the rich cultural heritage of Maharashtra featuring a live orchestra, singers and about 40-50 dancers from both sexes, all dressed up in the native colorful attire, dancing to the live music. The entire team comprises of 125 members. Ashok Hande, whose a veteran of Marathi stage has produced, written, directed and presented the show and also figures in the 4 male singing choir. The musical focuses on the long rich marathi traditions of festivals, folk songs and dances and discusses its plight under the current generation of the marathi population.

Firstly, the show is colourful and thats the only word that comes to my mind. The dancers are ‘fantabulous’ and the singers are mellifluous in their renditions as well. Its proof enough that they have worked pretty hard to get this show running on its feet what with the singers memorizing entire paras of songs and the dancers remembering their steps on every word of it. That said subtle references to the ‘paraprantiya’ (migrant population) during such shows involving the ‘marathi manoos’ (native maharastrian), is always on the cards and is a big turn off personally. This refers to the apparent displacement of the original marathi populace from their native land in mumbai to far-flung places in the northern suburbs and beyond, which is being attributed to the high influx of migrants from outside the state, their illegal settlement & economic progression in this city. One thought that the wonderful cultural platform that the musical ‘Marathi Baana’ offered should in no way be misused to fan the emotions of the patrons who come to enjoy the show. Art has to be set free of all biases against creed or race. But go and watch it for art’s sake and revel in the cultural celebration.