Spending on food versus spending on missiles... why it is important to spend on both

I've asked myself for a few years if India should really be spending money on missiles, space programs, etc., when hundreds of millions in my country are malnourished and poor. I hadn't arrived at an answer till today, because the thought that India should first curb poverty and only then move to "discretionary" expenditures such as missiles and space launches had continued to make me think.

India successfully tested the Agni-V ICBM today, and further strengthened its strategic deterrence capability. I was reading the news about this launch on The Washington Post, and came across this comment by a reader:

"gratz on being another country with ability to vapourize millions at the push of a button while millions in your own Country bathe in open sewers and eat rat on a stick as a special treat."

I asked myself, is this person right? Should we be feeding our people instead of developing missiles? Then the fate of the countries which didn't have strong military defense/strike capabilities [but, of course, did have some type of lucrative wealth - oil or otherwise] struck me. These nations - Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya - have been destroyed, humiliated and eaten up by the insatiable greed of the West. Their resources have been robbed, their infrastructure has been burnt to ashes, their women have been raped, and their men blown to dust by unending showers of bombs and missiles [official figures from the US say that 7,700 bombs were dropped on Libya to, laughably, "protect the civilians"]. Why? Because all of these countries have wealth but didn't have enough military capability to protect their wealth from murderers, robbers, scoundrels and thieves.

Two dead Iraqi children lie together shortly before a funeral ceremony in Ramadi, Iraq, west of Baghdad, Wednesday, May 19, 2004. A U.S. helicopter fired on a wedding party in the remote desert near the border with Syria, killing more than 40 people, most of them women and children, Iraqi officials said. The U.S. military said it was investigating. (Source: Cryptome)

Case in point is North Korea. Why doesn't the West militarily strike North Korea, the way it is planning to bomb Iran and Syria? It's because of the single reason that the North possesses enough deterrence in the form of nuclear weapons. North Koreans might be poor, but at least they're alive and safe in their homes!

I would rather see Indians alive and bathing in open sewers, than see them killed and blown to pieces by American missiles. And so India must spend on both food and missiles, or else it too shall be a victim of the West's greed one day. That's the answer I've got today :)

Update [May'12]: Just found a funny, related cartoon.

 

Update [Jan'16]: North Korea rightfully justified its development and testing of miniature hydrogen bombs [thermonuclear bombs] by citing the fate of Iraq [and Saddam Hussein] and Libya [and Muammar Gaddafi]. It'll suffer a similar fate if it doesn't continue developing ultra-powerful weapons.

Update [Apr'17]: North Korea is absolutely right. If it didn't have/develop nuclear weapons, America would bomb it just like that, the way it has recently fires missiles at Syria.

Updates [Aug'17, Sep'19]:

TRUMP INTEL CHIEF: NORTH KOREA LEARNED FROM LIBYA WAR TO “NEVER” GIVE UP NUKES [link]

ASPEN SECURITY FORUM 2017 AT THE HELM OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY [link]

North Korea Suggests Libya Should Have Kept Nuclear Program [link]

DONALD TRUMP JUST ADMITTED THAT IT MAKES SENSE FOR AMERICA’S ENEMIES TO GET NUCLEAR WEAPONS [link]

Frequently, Wikipedia turns out to be less readable and enjoyable than regular encyclopedias

For example, I enjoyed reading about eminent domain on Britannica more than I enjoyed reading about it on Wikipedia. Not only is the text usually written more coherently and logically on Britannica, the ability to easily increase the font size improves readability. The articles are usually shorter, which make them more readable than Wikipedia's long and "cobbled together" articles.

Justifying the higher price of a Sony VAIO VPCYB25AG/B compared to a HP Mini netbook

When some weeks back I had to choose a small, light, ultra-portable notebook for my father [primarily for accessing the Web], I faced a dilemma - whether to go with the cheaper HP Mini [or equivalent alternatives from Dell, et al.], or to go with the relatively expensive Sony VAIO VPCYB25AG/B.

I decided to compare to differences between the Mini and the VAIO and assign individual costs to these differences, in order to determine if the VAIO justified its higher price [INR ~25K, compared to INR ~17.5K for the HP Mini 210-2103tu PC].

The Sony VAIO VPCYB25AG/B

The VAIO has the following extra stuff compared to the Mini, and I've assigned an approximate price to each of the extra things. It has to be remembered that the extra stuff will be enjoyed over the many years one is expected to use the product, so the actual value realized might be significantly more than my conservative estimates.

1. CPU: The CPUs can be considered broadly equivalent. However, judging by some online reviews, the AMD chip in the VAIO beats the Mini's Intel chip in standard CPU benchmark tests by a material margin. INR 1,500 value.
2. RAM: The VAIO has double the amount of RAM than the Mini has, although its memory is slightly slower than the Mini's. INR 1,000 value.
3. Display: VAIO has a 11.6 inches display, compared to 10.1 inches on the Mini. My hands-on experience made me realize that a while a 10.6 inch display fares poorly from a readability perspective [defeating the purpose of buying a machine for Web access], a 11.6 inch display passes the minimum acceptability barrier by a decent margin. INR 2,000 value.
4. GPU: With its AMD Radeon GPU, the VAIO easily beats the Mini when it comes to graphics performance [increasingly important in more and more products, such as in Internet Explorer 9]. INR 1,500 value.
5. HDMI port: The port is absent in the Mini, but available on the VAIO. INR 500 value.
6. Software: The VAIO has a better bundled software package. INR 500 value.
7. Design: The VAIO has a far more elegant and tasteful design than the Mini, one that's both more functional and more pleasing. INR 1,000 value.
8. The "Sony" and "VAIO" flaunt value: One must assign a price to the extra flaunt value that comes from carrying a Sony VAIO. Acer, Compaq, Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc., just can't beat the Sony and VAIO brands. INR 500 value.
9. Build quality: A minute spent with both the Mini and the VAIO makes it clear that the Mini doesn't match the build quality, finish, manliness, ruggedness and workmanship of the VAIO. The VAIO gives the feeling of a machine that has been designed and built from scratch, with care and love, while the Mini gives the feeling of an assembled machine, a toy. INR 1,000 value.

I concluded that the extra differential value offered by the VAIO is about INR 9,500, which more than compensates for the INR ~7.5K difference between the actual market prices of the products. Even if the extra value is not taken into account, essential attributes such as display size, design, and build quality made the VAIO the more sensible choice.

Hidden, ugly truth: It's the petrol buyers in India who are subsidizing the price of diesel!

I'm strongly against sale of diesel cars in India. Diesel has been subsidized in India for agricultural use and for use in trucks, etc., and not for use by wealthy owners of Audi, BMW, VW and other cars.

In India, we're repeatedly told that the government subsidizes diesel (and kerosene, etc.) for welfare reasons. Yet we see the super-wealthy segment misusing this subsidy by buying diesel versions of cars (next time carefully look at every Mercedes and Skoda that passes by, you'll notice that a majority of them are diesel-powered).

The ugly truth Indians are not told is that diesel is not subsidized by the Indian government.

It's subsidized by the petrol buyers!

It's the petrol earnings that subsidize the price of diesel. And who pays for petrol? Those with bikes, scooters, Maruti 800s and the scores of other petrol-powered vehicles. While someone driving a Toyota Corolla can easily afford petrol, someone driving an 800 or an Alto or a Nano probably finds it difficult to buy the ever-more-expensive petrol. And yet, this individual finds himself in the uncomfortable and unacceptable situation of subsidizing the fuel costs of a BMW owner, who clearly has enough money to pay for petrol.

Automobile companies in India are clearly trying to profit from the rate difference between petrol and diesel.

Solution: I believe that taking all of the following steps will play a significant cumulative role in ensuring that car-owners cannot and do not misuse the subsidy on diesel available in India:

1. Ban the introduction of new diesel cars (let existing ones sell - read more below).
2. Allow car companies who have already invested in diesel cars to continue selling these for the next 5 years. This will ensure that these companies are not at a disadvantage, after having already invested.
3. Make it mandatory for all fuel stations to sell diesel to cars at a higher price compared to the price charged to tractors, trucks, etc. While there are some obvious holes in this step, it'll help at least partially.
4. Increase the costs of owning and operating diesel cars (by increasing insurance costs, pollution certificate fee, taxes, etc.). This will recoup the subsidy that diesel car owners have misused over the years.

Humans and the right to roam freely on Earth

Sometimes I wonder, animals and birds can freely roam from any place to any other on Planet Earth. Nobody stops them from walking over the mountains, crossing the "borders" and moving or settling in a new territory.

Us humans, arguably the most special species on this planet, in contrast, do not enjoy this right to move freely on our very special planet. I ask why. Why aren't humans allowed to travel freely on Earth? To whom does this planet belong? Can anyone be stopped from traveling to other celestial bodies (like the Moon, or perhaps Mars or to an asteroid)? Most likely not. So why cannot humans travel to any part of Earth, a planet that belongs to all of us collectively but none of us individually...

An aerial view of a dense forest.

Update [22-Jun-17]: Had the exact same thought today, and was going to write a blog post, when found that I've already written it here.

SEO (along with PageRank) has wrecked the Web

This thought has been going on in my mind for many days now, and I've finally decided to put it in words after reading the PageRank-busting post by Rich Skrenta today.

I have to agree with Rich. PageRank has indeed wrecked the Web. It has incentivized "publishers" to create utterly useless pages infested with paid links to other websites. As Rich said, the value that Google has attached to a hyperlink has had the side effect of encouraging the mushrooming of billions of trash-worthy pieces of content on the Web. The result? The Web has got wrecked. I won't be surprised if a future study reveals that 90% of the content on the Web is trash.

However, accusing PageRank alone of playing havoc with the Web would be an injustice to this arguably marvelous mathematical model. The other offended that has also played an important role in screwing the Web is SEO, or search engine optimization.

Without digressing into details of SEO, I claim that SEO is a major distraction for publishers that publish their content on the Web. Instead of focusing solely on creating quality content and writing what they want to write, these publishers also have to optimize their content for the major Web search engines [all of which employ broadly similar techniques to rank content]. This so-called optimization means that, in the case of news stories, both the title and the body of a news story is filled with keywords and phrases that help to jack up the visibility of that story on the major search engines. So, instead of giving a story a witty but obscure title, an author would rather include important keywords in it to attract clicks, virtually killing the title by making it mechanical [CPI is another culprit responsible for encouraging production of useless content, as it encourages publishers to use tricks to maximize page impressions].

The broad path the Russians should follow to sustain and grow sales of Ilyushin Il-96 aircraft

The Ilyushin Il-96 is a nice, large-sized aircraft. It's relatively modern, large, based on the proven Il-86 product, and crucially, it hasn't faced the quality/reliability issues that have plagued the Tupolev Tu-204. Plus, it's significantly cheaper than comparable offerings from Airbus/Boeing. Equally importantly, it belongs to the Russians' political camp, meaning thereby that anti-America nations such as Iran and Venezuela can buy it.

A beautiful Il-96 taxiing in Poland. (Source)

However, these good points aside, the Il-96 can't really match the comfort, economics/efficiency, prestige, quality, reliability and safety of comparable aircraft from Airbus and Boeing. Additionally, while all-new Russian aircraft are being developed in the small and medium categories (Sukhoi Superjet 100 and Irkut MS-21), there's no program to develop an ultra-modern, large-sized airliner to replace Il-96. Finally, as of today, the Il-96 has logged negligible sales.

What should the Russians do to sustain and grow the sales of Il-96? I think UAC should launch a program to release an overhauled and Westernized version of the Il-96, with the specific intent of selling it to the West. The Superjet 100 and MS-21 both incorporate a large amount of Western technology, and it shouldn't be a concern if this Westernized version of Il-96 also relies significantly on Western technology. The objective, it should be remembered, is to steal at least some sales from Airbus and Boeing. And any airline that matters in the West asks for brute quality, something that can't be achieved using contemporary Russian technology alone. In any case, if pure Russian Il-96 results in zero sales in the West, and a hybrid Russian-Western Il-96 results in some sales in the West, then choosing the latter is preferable.

Apart from this, I think UAC should also do what Airbus and Boeing do - release frequent and regular updates to their aircraft, that improve performance and reliability, reduce cost and increase safety. The Il-96 is a nice aircraft that can sell more than it's selling at the moment. There's no other aircraft of this size at this price (neither passenger nor cargo), but the Russians apparently aren't taking advantage of this strong advantage.

On treating adulterators and criminals equally

That there are a lot of adulterated food (including beverages, etc.) and spurious medicines on the market today is not hidden from anyone. I'm quite concerned about it.

A thought has been running in my mind for the last few days - that adulterators (not to be confused with adulterer) should be treated just like criminals. What does a criminal do? He shoots at you or stabs you can causes you bodily injury. What does an adulterator do? By way of making you consume adulterated food and spurious medicines, he too causes you physical harm (albeit slightly indirectly).

This striking commonality alone is sufficient to convince me that all those who adulterate cosmetics, drinks, fruits, medicines, milk products, vegetables, etc., should be considered dangerous to the public and punished harshly - like criminals. Remember, a murderer might kill only one person, but an adulterator will probably harm dozens simultaneously, including such delicate lives as infants, little kids, pregnant women, the elderly and others.

It's my desire that every product on the market be pure, so that I and others can start enjoying the pure milk that once sold in Punjab :)

Foreign companies operating in India shouldn't be allowed to take Indians for a ride

I've frequently read complaints (on Consumer Complaints, MouthShut and other websites) about cheating, fraud, poor service, etc., given to Indians by foreign companies operating here (AIG, Allianz, Barclays, GE Capital, HSBC, RBS, etc.). I feel outraged when I read such complaints, and I wonder why foreign companies operating in India are allowed to deceive Indians and get away with it. Why aren't they punished harshly, making it clear to the world that if you're coming here to make money, you won't be allowed to cheat Indians.

I'm not suggesting that Indian companies should be allowed to deceive Indians, but I'm proposing significantly harsher penalties for foreign companies. I would also like to see these penalties delivered quickly, so that the affected customers don't have to wait for remuneration for a long time.

Antennagate, iPhone 5 and Apple's opportunity

As an attempt to calm down the negative publicity about iPhone 4, Apple had initially posted a webpage (since taken down and replaced by a milder version) comparing the antenna performance of various smartphones from Apple's competitors (HTC, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, etc.). The comparisons showed that phones from Apple's rivals had at least as many antenna issues as iPhone 4 has. A backlash ensued and Apple quietly removed the offending material from its website.

If the following assumptions are true, Apple has a nice opportunity in its hands to humiliate and hurt its rivals:

1. Apple, based on innovative engineering, virtually eliminates the antenna/signal issues from iPhone 5.
2. Apple's rivals do not take any material steps to eliminate the antenna issues highlighted by Apple's original comparisons.

Assuming that the above two assumptions come out as true, Apple can reinstate the offending material that it had put up on its website, and this time (with iPhone 5, that is) its rivals won't be able to claim that the comparisons are false. Apple will have a potent marketing weapon in its hands with which to strike at the heart of its rivals.