Darshan Chande Lexicon

Externalities

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Mon, 06 Apr 2015 03:06:00 +0000

Externalities are costs a society has to bear for some person or group enjoying/exercising freedom without responsibilities and/or rights without corresponding duties.

Example: When women are given special reservation (a right) in trains in the form of women only compartments, it confers on them a duty to not travel by general compartments (which should ideally be men only compartments). It is not a legally binding duty but is moral thing to do. I see women travelling in general compartments occupying seats while men have to go standing, all at the same time there are vacant seats in women's compartments which men can not occupy. It reduces efficiency of the system. This reduced efficiency is an externality of women's right without the binding duty corresponding to the right.

Rape

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 06:14:00 +0000

Rape is robbery of sexual resource that a woman possesses. It is akin to a man getting robbed of wealth. Both are essentially taking by force what someone else has that one needs. Sex is a resource that women possess and men want.

Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 00:42:00 +0000

Use of any means external to oneself for improving life or living conditions, or solving a problem.

The invention of wheel, and the first use of fire by primates are technological developments. Using a stick to relieve one's back of an itch is using technology. Mental stress can be relieved by rest or meditation, but using drugs (means external to oneself) for the same is using technology. Weapons of destruction are technology, as they (if supposedly) improve living conditions or solve a problem,..

Social productivity

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 15:28:00 +0000

Social productivity is a measure of an individual's usefulness to the society. An individual is useful to the society when he lives in a way that helps the society flourish. Such individual is said to be socially productive.

Social productivity can be negative (criminals) or zero (free-riders).

Status

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 07:24:00 +0000

Status is value of a person based on their social productivity or usefulness to the society. More useful the person is to the society, higher his social productivity and worth, and higher the status.

An enterprising man has higher social productivity than a bum. Hence, the former should hold higher status. A family oriented woman is more useful to the society than a corporate woman. Hence, the former should hold higher status. Such value system may not be upheld by the contemporary society, the price of which it may pay.

Women empowerment

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 03:53:00 +0000

The process of social change which allows women to get rid of feminine qualities that make them valuable and useful to the society.

Smart work

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 03:46:00 +0000

Applying short-term/loose fixes to broad level problem mainly keeping in mind personal gain and/or protecting one's ass.

Context: In my limited experience in corporate world I have seen that managers reward people who do "smart work" (in the above sense) over those who do hard work. Because the former help them achieve their productivity targets and KRA's which are the primary qualifying parameters for the next appraisal. Since corporations are limited liability entities, no one really works for the company, much less for adding value to the society (which should be the primary focus of a business entity). In modern times jumping jobs every two years for 30 to 40 percent hike in compensation is quite normal. Who cares what the repercussions of one's policies are a few years down the line when one would have been promoted to another level or moved on to another employer.

Customer service

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 01:58:00 +0000

Psychopathic criminals hiring empathetic people to represent them to their victims.

People skills

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 00:35:00 +0000

Knowing how to manipulate people.

Intellectual

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 01:12:00 +0000

A person who more than enjoying enjoys critiquing enjoyment.

Metro friendship

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 11:44:00 +0000

Metro friendship is a superficial friendship in which friends may not know that it is superficial; they often consider themselves to be very good friends, because it's the best friendship they can have in their kind of lifestyle.

These are generally friendships between people who don't have much social life outside their corporate workplace where they spend 10-12 hrs a day (and the rest of the time is slept off or spent in front of TV), and on weekends become crazy zombies with booze or do some such shit with their "friends".

Needless to say, I derived this term from "metro lifestyle", which doesn't have scope for deeper human connections.

Unregulated sexual marketplace

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 13:49:00 +0000

A society in which sexual pursuits and activities of its members are not governed by religious norms or traditional values. Modern urban world is mostly transformed into one.

Mass media (mostly television), technological "developments" and consequent changes in lifestyles are major factors contributing to washing away of traditional values; whereas scientific advances have long challenged religious worldviews. Although religions still have strong foothold, they hardly have any influence on the lifestyles of urbanites.

In an unregulated sexual marketplace, romantic love will be a disease, marriage and family will be virtually non-existent. There will be few winners while most people will be losers. And even those who win will have no peace of mind since sexual competition is always on.

Unregulated sexual marketplace is a nightmare of human existence.

Also see: Sexual marketplace (world)

Sexual marketplace (world)

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 13:48:00 +0000

Since life is fundamentally about spreading one's genes through reproduction, reproduction is the primary goal of life. (Rational beings may not have it as a goal consciously, but in Nature's design it is the only goal.)

Sexuality is a resource that women possess which men have to compete for (a facet of survival of the fittest game). A woman would be naturally selected by evolution to mate with a man who comes up as the best bet for the spread of their genes. That gives rise to market mechanism. And since the pursuit of sex is central to all of human life, the world of human beings can be viewed as sexual marketplace.

How market forces work in the domain of human sexuality is brilliantly explained in Sexual Economics by Roy F. Baumeister

Also see: Unregulated sexual marketplace

Art film

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 15:20:00 +0000

A film that serves higher purpose than entertaining the audience.

Philosopher

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:33:00 +0000

A philosopher is a person who doesn't take anything for granted and wonders about the origins of things.

Profit

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 16:37:00 +0000

(Cross-posted at Philosophical Inquiry)

Profit is a gain for oneself at someone else's expense.

On moral grounds, I tend to be against profit making. I consider profit to be a kind of backdoor interest. It's like sex. Everybody would want to have it whenever and wherever they can, and they might, but it should not be accepted as a virtue. The natural motivation to make profit and the stigma that the society would associate with it would create a system of checks and balances.

If I have something which you value more than I, and you are willing to pay for it more than it has cost me, we both stand to gain by the transaction. There doesn't seem anything wrong in it whereby I make profit. It has to be noted that it's accidental that I happened to have something that put me in a position to earn profit. However, if I make profit making a motive and deliberately create situations (as opposed to it happening accidentally) of profiting, that should be questionable on moral grounds — or at least be subject to some moral scrutiny under certain conditions.

Profit making is not a sin when the intent is exercised within limits; but since the animal nature driven activities of self interest don't require efforts, if left on its own it is bound to go off limits. Hence, stigma is necessary to check the natural self interest before it becomes destructive. The stigma associated with sex also serves the same purpose.

In today's society which is largely influenced and controlled by big corporations, more often than not profit directly creates inequality. Inequality in a crudest form of society – the state of Nature – calls forth physical force to correct itself. The state of Nature is the baseline for real equality (definition pending). In a sophisticated society like ours it exerts psychological costs if/because physical force is restrained. Hence, ideally, we should strive for, as far as we can, egalitarian society (definition pending), either by not making profit or distributing it.

The reward for the merits one has (owing to genetic lottery or favorable living conditions) should be the goodwill earned by using those merits, and not profit; for goodwill is earned by putting one's merits to common use making everybody gain. Profit being for oneself (and that too at someone else's expense) only threatens social harmony. For a sustainable society, common gain is the only type of gain possible with long run perspective.

Though it would be wrong to say that profit is unethical in essence, but being a backdoor interest, it has a tendency of becoming harmful to the society if not checked and balanced by some social mechanism. That mechanism is stigma associated with profit motive. If profit making is accepted as a virtue (as it is today), it could lead the society to its doom.

I would say we should not have a mind of a businessman but of a service provider. That would make a better society.

Sexual freedom

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 16:41:00 +0000

A state of sexual freedom is where sex is not a taboo. Where people freely talk about sex in all kinds of social settings and express their sexual desire without being judged as indecent. Contrary to popular attitude, I stand against the idea.

A society of free sex which permits unrestrained sexual expression would have sex as a predominant ingredient in relationships, and where man-woman relationships couldn't be more meaningless and painful.

Sexual freedom is not a feature of forward society but a backward one, for it is through regulation of animal instincts that we have developed into civilization. Now giving way to it couldn't lead us ahead, not in any meaningful way, I believe.

Perversion

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:55:00 +0000

Perversion is any action or behavior that disrupts smooth functioning of the society, natural forces in humans considered.

It is so, because in absence of absolute right and wrong, we tie morality to human wellbeing (which depends on social order). Any behavior that is detrimental to this goal is immoral.

Immorality or perversion? Sex is not immoral per se, but unregulated sex or excess of it is harmful to the society, so that's perversion (and of course, immoral too).

Also see: Intellectual perversion

Relative wellbeing theory (of happiness)

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 01:03:00 +0000

This theory explains happiness as a function of relative wellbeing. According to it, once the point of basic comforts has been reached, a person's happiness would depend on his comfort level/wellbeing relative to the wellbeing of others in his environment.

Example: When no one had smartphones people were not unhappy because of not owing a smartphone. But if all of your friends own a smartphone then not owning one would very likely make you dissatisfied and create a desire to own it, even if you don't have particular use for a smartphone. (And unfulfilled desire is suffering.) This dissatisfaction would not be because of you not owing a smartphone per se, but because of not owning it when everyone around you owns one. Hence, this suffering would not be direct product of your condition, but your condition relative to the condition of your surrounding.

Much of the unhappiness in modern times is explained by the theory.

Also see: Comforts-happiness relationship, Happiness

Backdoor interests

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 03:33:00 +0000

Backdoor interests are individual-centric interests which undermine the cooperation principle the society is founded on. These interests are often rooted in our animal nature. While some of the backodoor interests are unavoidable (like the pursuit of sex), that doens't mean they should be accepted as normal or good behavior (open a front door for, so to speak).

Backdoor interests would be exercised by most people to varying extent, but when the society opens the front door for them – that is, lifts social pressure/punishment and/or makes the pursuit into a virtue – that becomes problematic. A glaring example of a backdoor interest become a virtue in today's society is business. Profit is (or should be) a backdoor interest, but today we have business schools who formally and legally teach how to make profit.

Also see: Profit

Cooperation principle

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 16:07:00 +0000

I use the term to elucidate the development of humans from the state of nature into the society. Society is a system wherein individuals have aligned their interests for higher wellbeing. Cooperation, therefore, is a glue that holds the society together.

In game theoretic terms, society becomes possible when all the players in prisoner's dilemma repeatedly decide to cooperate for continued mutual gain, as opposed to non-cooperation (i.e. cheating) for one-time personal gain.

Civilized society, thus, is a product of cooperation principle.

Free Rider Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:25:00 +0000

An individual in a civilized society is free rider if he keeps his focus and concern limited to himself and is not contributing to the common good of the society.

One is born as free rider, and in childhood it's fine. An adult free rider is narcissist, a parasite.

Free riding is the most fundamental form of evil in societal form of living. To avoid free rider problem a society must be quipped to implement any necessary measure, because the natural consequence of widespeard free riding is failed society.

Pessimism

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:51:00 +0000

Many philosophically inclined realists are stigmatized as pessimists for acknowledging the reality, viz. fundamental meaninglessness of life etc., which is wrong. Acknowledging the reality worse than one's imagination is not pessimism.

Pessimism is when one imagines worse than the reality.

Misery

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 03:46:00 +0000

Suffering

Misery is the state of suffering which has to be overcome. Suffering is healthy, but feeling miserable is not.

The best way to avoid misery is philosophical development, i.e. understanding life and the causes of suffering.

Blog post(s):

Difference Between Pain, Suffering and Misery

Suffering

noreply@blogger.com (Darshan Chande) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 03:40:00 +0000

Suffering is a broad term containing avoidable and unavoidable experiences that we don't want to have.

Suffering is not to be eliminated, because it's an important ingredient for one's development. Without suffering, there's no development; and more importantly, there can't be happiness in absence of suffering. Though it's our nature to avoid suffering, but one needs to ensure that one doesn't shut oneself out of all experiences of life in order to just keep from all suffering.

Also see: Misery