India has neither the ability nor the desire to attack the US. The very idea is silly.
The country has its hands full enough coping with its state of quasi-chaos and belligerent nuclear-armed neighbors without taking on the worlds leading superpower for absolutely no reason at all.
You need to give some details and arguments on your extraordinary claim because what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
They are good enough that they have to actively hide in order that they are not killed, literally, in the cross fire their work has caused. This has been the situation for over a decade.
Consider how big the Indian software universe is and how utterly implausible it would be for them not to have any capacity. That would be the extraordinary claim.
What we tend to forget is that even with the catastrophic effects of climate change, the Earth is still vastly more inhabitable than other planets in the solar system. More pertinently, today we also have the intellectual tools to come with the right solutions for a good part of this problem. Solutions most likely won't require dramatic breakthroughs in fundamental science; probably just more clever engineering and better social and political coordination.
The real problem is that this is happening in one of the most socio-economically underdeveloped regions of the world. Despite isolated centers of modest excellence, India still hasn't fully absorbed the implications of the scientific revolution at a popular, cultural level. A good part of the population are still caught up in pre-modern modes of thinking. Rather than addressing this gap, the political establishment is only deepening an irrational and romantic belief in the worth of India's classical worldviews to continue their hold on power.
More than climate change, I dread the self-inflicted servitude to infantile notions that is holding India hostage. It's not really difficult to emerge out of this - we just need to shed our intellectual timidity and face reality as it is.
> What we tend to forget is that even with the catastrophic effects of climate change, the Earth is still vastly more inhabitable than other planets in the solar system.
Speak for yourself. I have never forgotten that Earth is more inhabitable than Mars or Jupiter
Nobody wants to sacrifice their own economic growth / position.
But also, would it actually make a difference at this point? That is, can it be stopped, or have we passed the point of no return? I believe the latter.
There are also pockets of India that are more advanced than many places elsewhere. I have a lot of love for Kerala. It doesn't have too many jobs, but it has a ton of heart and forward thinking people (which is why industrialists are scared of it).
Kerala has alternated between a left-wing coalition(the Left Democratic Front - LDF) and a centrist to centre-right coalition(the United Democratic Front - UDF) for a long time. The current major communist party in Kerala, though ideologically Marxist-Leninist, is practically a social democratic one in its policies and actions.
I have a hard time believing that your team who were mostly from Kerala asked you not to set up a development centre there, as IT is pretty immune to militant trade unionism. A lot of companies have development centres in Trivandrum, some were set up more than twenty years ago.
I don't disagree that Kerala was known for being rather unfriendly to big industries, but things are changing. The Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry ranked Kerala at the top in 2024 for "Ease of Doing Business Reforms".
As for the clothes manufacturer, I believe you are talking about Kitex. They didn't go anywhere and their factories are still there in Kerala. They did set up a new factory recently in Telengana though, which, along with the rest of the company, is going through a rough phase now because of Trump's tariffs.
I think I was a bit hasty in expressing disbelief about your experience. Your team asked you not to set up a development centre in Kerala probably because it was not really known for being industry-friendly at the time. Apologies.
India produces abundance of food and got vast fertile lands. Modern farming is good but its gonna wipe out tens of millions of jobs if its done in no time.
While it's clear the parent poster was talking about another country, I'll add in the context of your reply: The current US administration is pushing low-carbon pro-nuclear energy which for one plant replaces hundreds of wind turbines.
I have always thought of DSA as a proxy for a subset of general software development skills: the ability to translate a problem into computer science or programming terms, implement it in code, and argue that the implementation is correct and efficient. Skill in solving DSA problems can signal both an aptitude for absorbing computer science knowledge in general and a capacity for solving problems through programming. It's not the whole thing, but it's certainly an important component.
It’s not unlike a research mathematician being expected to solve quadratic equations. He may not need them in his day-to-day work, but with a little preparation he should be able to handle them. If he struggles with quadratic equations in an interview where such knowledge is expected, that would raise a red flag about his training.
> It’s not unlike a research mathematician being expected to solve quadratic equations. He may not need them in his day-to-day work, but with a little preparation he should be able to handle them. If he struggles with quadratic equations in an interview where such knowledge is expected, that would raise a red flag about his training.
The absurdity of this indicates a big part of what’s wrong with modern SWE interviews.
You wouldn’t ask a research mathematician to derive the quadratic formula, and you wouldn’t give a writer a spelling test — passing or not isn’t related to their aptitude or proficiency.
Additionally, imagine interviewing a complex analyst and quizzing them only on calc 1 — sure, it may be a course that they were expected to take at some point, but it really has little to do with what their actual work entails, and so half of the interview they’d be trying to slot what the proper layer of abstraction is in the limited context of the problem.
This may, in the end, be for the best - if it dents American power over the long term.
I like America and Americans very much, but no state should wield the kind of power the United States currently holds, precisely for the reasons the Trump administration exemplifies. When a responsible government is in office, all is well and good. But when the political winds shift and a more capricious actor takes charge, such concentrated power can become dangerous.
I hope America’s allies have taken note and will adjust their policies accordingly.
You know what follows a power vacuum? War. I would rather have a status quo that feels at times chafing than the opportunity for everything to get absolutely horrendous in the not too distant future.
Nope, war is perpetuated by unhinged leaders and governments which enable them. When Bismarck created the concert of Europe, there was peace for the most part of that time period within Europe, when every power was curtailed by the other. When Bismarck was expelled and Wilhelm II took things in his own hands, WW1 happened.
I've often seen this phenomenon at play in religions. They are not intentionally lying even when they put forward outrageous claims; they genuinely believe what they say.
I once went to a conference about a company selling MLM products (I didn't know they were selling MLM products and I was young enough to not know about MLM). They were eating their own dogfood there, and lunch was free. It was at an expensive hotel in my country. There were loads of yuppies there. Everyone wore a suit.
Despite that, the conference felt as if I was at a cult. And the CEO knew I had a couple of questions about his products. He gave me the death gaze / cold stare during a speech. I was in my early 20s, scared shitless.
Now, remember I wrote the conference was as if I was at a cult? I got invited to this conference via a brother of an aunt (cold side). He used to be in a cult. Now he was a hardcore Christian. He got very rich from these MLM products because he was high up in the chain. As they say: the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
I am obsessed about three related issues currently, though I am not making progress in any of them, being generally bogged down by life.
(a) How do India's classical views of reality that mainly stem from its contemplative traditions relate to the modern view of reality that we know from modern science? Are the former just "spiritual" modalities - i.e., "mere" religions - that must give up their claims on having anything useful to say about the nature of reality in the face of superior and more effective theories, or is there something useful that they have to add to the story?
I would like to see it investigated by someone who is not dismissive of these traditions, but also bring a rigorous spirit of skeptical enquiry to their investigations.
I suspect that this might take a unique kind of investigator: someone (a) who is technically trained in several modern scientific disciplines (since India's metaphysical traditions such as sAmkhya or vedAnta simultaneously straddle psychological, physiological and physical aspects), (b) who has undergone a training in the scriptural traditions that deal with these topics (which will involve a close familiarity with Sanskrit, and possibly the major Buddhist classical languages such as Pali or classical Tibetan), and (c) who undergoes the contemplative training which will systematically induce in the practitioner the first hand experiences of altered states of consciousness without which you cannot make sense of these claims.
The core issue that I can surmise so far is fundamentally a divergence in investigation techniques: one uses a first-person, subjective, inward-looking ("antarmukhi") stance at looking our experience, and the other uses a third-person, objective, outward-looking ("bahiurmukhi") stance. One is reality as it is felt at a subtle level, and the other as it is seen at a gross level. Of course, the third-person perspective by now has a vast array of verifiable results in its favor; I can't see many for the first-person perspective.
It may seem like a tall order, but it's actually only the equivalent of doing a few post-doctorate level courses over the period of some 20 odd years. Don't expect anyone to pay you for it though; you pretty much have to write off your life. The trick is to both attack and defend by taking opposing poles of views, until you reach the goal. A "manthana" if you will, for those who are familiar with the idea.
(b) How would one naturalize the modern scientific and rational tradition in India in an authentic manner?
Modernity didn't arise through an organic process of gradual discourse with the classical views in India; it was pretty much imposed on India by its colonial conquerors and later co-opted unreflectingly by an elite class, as a result of which it has a "bolted on" feel.
If you look at everything from India's legal system, commercial space, to education and scientific establishments, they use ideas and themes whose origin lay in post-enlightenment Europe. But they don't feel natural enough; vast sections of the society are still trapped in classical ways of thinking.
I feel especially tortured when I see teachers cargo-culting scientific and technical education in India. I despair even more when I see a tendency in India to reject some of these ideas - many of which are obviously essential to India's wellbeing - as simply un-Indian.
This issue I think is closely tied to issue (a) - Indians must do the legwork of painstakingly resolving the dissonance that exists between classical Indian and modern traditions. We must accept that (just as the west did) if the classical views are wrong, they are wrong, and that's the end of it, but we must also unearth what may be of relevance in them.
Simply dismissing them through brute force (ala China's cultural revolution) won't do, since Indians are deeply attached to their classical traditions, and this section will revolt violently. I also don't think that dismissing them outright would be doing justice to our ancestors.
I am especially dismayed (and also thrilled!) by the awe inspiring fecundity of the West in the fields of science and technology. What is India's answer to it? Will we forever remain mere consumers of innovation? What will it take to transplant some of that cultural genome into the Indian society so that it takes root?
In short, what makes the West tick, and how can India also, tick, perhaps even better?
(c) What is a good, rational, and yet authentic "model" for Hinduism that a practicing Hindu should have?
A modern day ordinary Hindu is exposed to two different takes on what Hinduism is: a sacred one, and a secular one. For those who are familiar with the issue, I don't need to go into how one's tribalistic affiliations dictate one's bias towards their chosen take on the religion. And yet it seems to me that there is no attempt to find a tasteful resolution between these two acerbic poles.
I could go on and on, and my reading isn't as expansive as perhaps it should have been, but all these three areas are from my personal perspective very intertwined, and I wish more Indians would work on it. Most of our issues will be solved if we can make some sort of progress in these.
One question I have often wondered about is: does creativity "transfer" between analytical and artistic fields? For e.g., suppose you indulge in writing poetry, and also are mathematically trained. If you exhibit a high degree of poetic creativity, does it necessarily mean that you are also a highly creative mathematical thinker? Or are these two mostly orthogonal aspects?
That's a good question. My job is in web development where some analytical creativity is needed. I also like to draw and paint in my free time. Both activities feel similar in that I can get into that "flow" state in each one, but I don't know how much of the sources of creativity is common to both.
My feeling is that creativity is about exploring the problem and solution space so without detailed knowledge of those applying any creativity is impossible.
To be concrete art creativity might transfer a bit to UI/UX, but mostly you’d get nothing.
There might be aspects of how to conduct that search that could transfer, but it would be limited.
On the flip side I’m sure they would inspire each other for things that are t transferable.
(1) Physical fitness. These same years have seen the explosive growth of obesity and related lifestyle diseases. A greater percentage of people in first world countries (and increasingly elsewhere) are either obese or overweight. I recall reading that one way to keep your mind sharp is to be physically fit (cf: "Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain" by Ratey and Hagerman). The corollary could be that if you are not physically fit, your IQ will suffer.
(3) Sleep. I recall reading that people get lesser high quality sleep than they used to. It has very clearly become easier to stay up late today. Poor sleep is really bad for you for a number of reasons, including your cognitive performance and brain health.
I used to stay away from Facebook, but of late I have discovered many communities near me through that medium. Unlike reddit where the culture is to keep yourself anonymous, it's refreshing to deal with people's real identities in life.
I realize the price that we have to pay for this convenience, but as of now I'd rather not think about it. I am not proud of my laziness and cowardice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detachment_201
https://www.army.mil/article/286317/army_launches_detachment...
reply