Perfect Shades of Grey: Miserable Lives of Startup Arseholes

Ours is essentially a rabid era in which not only history but parameters of morality are being rewritten. There’s an article by Nishi Jain doing rounds: “We have dismissed academics and replaced Sharmaji ka beta with Mr. Malhotra’s engineer-turned-startup-guy son who plays the drums and drinks like a fish. He is the new role model every youngster has to aspire to become. We look at the perfect son of Mr. Malhotra and push ourselves further, till the threads begin to snap, layer by layer.” (Disclaimer: This is not a criticism of the article but rather of the cultural ideology.)

If drinking like a fish is a sign perfection, then what everyone is aspiring for is certainly not perfection. The “perfection” preached by the modern society should be in quotes because it is distorted and contradictory. The society tells us to be “perfect” but only as per its whims and vices. They use lame metaphors to lionise their role models: drink like a fish, smoke like a chimney, sniff [cocaine] like a dog, stoned like a hippy etc. because these “qualities” are now cool. The society asks for perfection but only selective perfection: they demand perfect careers and riches but they also demand booze, drugs and bad temper. That’s the paradox of perfect shades of grey: a confused world of deranged bigots.

Yuppies buy ultra-luxury cars just to show them off at wedding parties, and then they moan like sissies about their financial woes.

The word “startup” pops up like daisies these days. It is everywhere, constantly hammered by the yuppie brigade. Being a part of the startup breed makes one cool. Startup defines our lifestyle. Startup is for superior breed. Startup is hip. Startup is yuppie. Startup is God. Everyone is chanting “startup”,  “startup”, “startup” like a mantra. The recurrence of this lame word is a proof of the linguistic decadence of these times. Reading is called a lowbrow practice because moral gurus dictate that it’s not a “cool” hobby. Reality shows and tawdry mobile apps have replaced books. Attention deficiency is viewed as a virtue, whereas having a long attention span is seen as a sign of low IQ.

Tabloids and lifestyle gurus inculcate people to “acquire” certain “popular” hobbies in order to get laid. Hobbies are activities that people enjoy doing or are interested in but taking up a hobby just for society’s approval defeats the purpose of a hobby. Eventually the semblance becomes overwhelming and pressure takes it toll. Having fun has become a duty rather than self-fulfilment and having fun does not count unless it’s posted on social media. Then such startup assholes complain that they suffer from depression.

People wonder why they aren’t happy despite their high-paying jobs and swanky lifestyles. Perhaps no one wants to be happy because they prefer to keep All India Bakchod happy. It’s all about impressing the despot of Bakchodistan. It’s all about getting All India Bakchod’s approval, even if it means living a glum life full of lies. They paint a false picture of success so that can be a part of AIB’s caucus. They join the startup brigade because... umm everyone else of their moronic ilk is doing so. So we have government employees, schoolteachers, bank tellers claiming to be a part of the startup bandwagon.

As for Mr. Malhotra’s “perfect” son, the startup arseholes tell an incomplete story. He surely drinks like a fish but many people don’t know that after a few drinks he vomits like a pathetic loser and spends Sundays nursing his hangovers. He is a cool drummer, good at beating the drum of his superiority but he is officially bankrupt; he owes millions but still leads a lavish lifestyle. His married life is in shambles because he beats up his wife. He suffers from bipolar disorder and chronic depression. He is also a drug addict and a part-time drug supplier.

Whereas, Sharma ji’s supposedly unpopular academic son just received a Nobel Prize.

Why Most Sports Fans Are Stupid

Intellectuals are often critical of sports fans. They have a very good reason. Most of the sports fans are bigoted, fanatical, stupid and extremely jingoistic. Let it be fans of cricket, football or pro-wrestling, they all are the same. Of course not all sports fans are stupid. There are many rational, intelligent sports lovers. My cousin, Bundy, is a big fan of football and has very good knowledge of cricket. But unfortunately such people are a minority. Here are some outrageously asinine remarks or acts of some cricket fanatics:

—“Pakistani bowlers are considered to be legends, yet none of them feature in the list of top-ten highest wicket takers in Test cricket. [Followed by a laugh.]”

This is such a stupid argument. Judging a cricketer on statistics alone is ridiculous. Statistics don’t reveal the quality of the bowling, conditions and many other factors like injuries. Every great batsman who faced Malcolm Marshall considers him the greatest fast bowler ever but he doesn’t doesn’t even feature in the list top fifteen wicket takers. In fact, apart from Courtney Walsh, none of the great West Indian fast bowlers including Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Michael Holding feature among the top ten. Does that mean they were inferior bowlers? Any batsman would agree that Marshall, Ambrose and Holding were the most difficult bowlers to face. Mashall took 376 wickets. Compared to him Muralitharan and Warne had 800 and 708 respectively. Does that mean he was only half as good as they were? Surely not.

If statistics alone were to judge greatness, then Sachin Tendulkar never scored a triple century. In fact, he doesn’t feature in the list of top-90 highest scores made in a Test innings. Does that mean he’s not the best or one of the best?

Number of wickets are also dependent on the matches played. Imran Khan played cricket for twenty years but he only played 88 Tests, simply because Pakistan didn’t play enough cricket in the 1980s.

—“Md. Hafeez has a better batting average than Ian Botham, Mike Atherton and Nasseer Hussian. Hence, he is better than them.”

Obviously, the idiot who made his claim knows little about cricket. Comparing two different eras of cricket is ridiculous. Firstly, Botham and company didn’t have the luxury of featherweight, ultra-powerful bats of today and they faced much higher quality of bowlers than Hafeez does. Moreover, most of Hafeez’s runs have come against weak bowling attacks. Hafeez has a batting average of 39, which would be equal to an average of 25 in the ‘80s and the ‘90s.

If Javed Miandad and Vivian Richards played today, they would have averaged 70. Saeed Anwar was a great opener. Statistically his average is only six runs higher than Hafeez’s but he was a vastly superior batsman. In fact, he never scored a double century in his prolific career. But that doesn’t mean that he was an ordinary cricketer.

—“Sponsors and TV channels like Twenty-20 cricket because it draws more audience. But when it comes to films, people should only watch highbrow movies.” There is nothing wrong with this argument in isolation but the same hypocrites cry like sissies whenever Anurag Kashyap’s movie fails to float at the box-office. They abuse people who don’t see his movies. They ridicule common people for choosing entertainment over austerity. They belittle most of the blockbusters with their bigoted, inflammatory remarks. Akash Chopra shares propaganda videos that criticise blockbusters but gets offended when anyone criticises IPL. If public prefers T20 cricket over Test cricket, then they also prefer movies of Salman Khan or Akshay Kumar over the likes of Anurag Kashyap. If broadcasters want more of T20 cricket, then the same way distributors and exhibitors prefer 3 Idiots over Raman Raghav 2.0. Their double standards only reaffirm the fact that they are stupid Fascists.

With such irrational, jingoistic arguments any reasonable discussion is unexpected from such hardliners. One thing is for sure, Adolf Hitler would be proud of them. 

Manufacturing Consent on Quora

There’s trouble with unanimity. It is no doubt reliable but it shouldn’t be trusted blindly. In the 2002 elections in Iraq, there was 100 percent turnout of voters and all 100 percent voted in favour of Saddam Hussein. Obviously, the unanimity was not reliable.

Quora.com is somewhat similar to that. It is a very good tool for sharing knowledge and asking questions but only up to a certain limit. After that it is a mind control cult and a tool to manufacture consent. Take for instance the assertions used by the “happy family” of Quora:

-Most of the users of Quora claim to be employees of high-profile companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple etc. Their answers on Quora are long and anecdotal with incredible details. Where do they get time to write such long answers? People who work in those companies are well-paid but they also work long hours: sometimes 15–18 hours in a day. They not only work hard but they have families and active social lives. So where is the time to write such long answers, unless they are paid by corporations and government? In times when an average person brags about having a short attention span and gloats about having no time for anything other than work, it is quite amazing that they not only manage to post regularly on Quora, but they also find time garnish their answers with little details.

-“Quora broadens your horizons. If you don’t like Quora, you are narrow-minded and detached from reality.” The assertion itself is utterly narrow-minded and bullies anyone who dares to question them.

-Quora is like a happy family, where most of the users agree to one another. Isn’t that a little odd? It is difficulty to get unanimity in a family of four, then how could thousands of users have same opinions on almost everything from cinema to politics.

-Governments use Quora to brainwash people. The top four–five search results to most questions searched on google lead to Quora. It is a dangerous trend. Quora is influencing our actions and what we think. Quora has taken over every aspect people’s lives. Bigotry is rising. Beware.

-It is filled with thirty-odd-year-old lifestyle gurus who claim to know everything about everything. They indoctrinate people on every aspect of their lives. They tell people how many children they should have, what movies they should watch, how they can be successful (but ironically their own lives are miserable), the ideal quantity of happiness they should have in their lives (two teaspoons? in other words, no one is allowed to be happier than the prescription of lifestyle gurus), what career they should take etc. And anyone who isn’t like them or doesn’t watch the movies they watch is declared unsuccessful by them. They are a gang of bullies who harass people who ask for career advice. They discourage people from getting into high-paying careers by scaring them and feeding them with their pessimistic pabulum. If everyone listened to Quora for career advice, then many of the successful entrepreneurs, doctors and engineers would be doing minimum-wage jobs.

-Almost every Indian on Quora loves Anurag Kashyap. The ratio of his lovers on Quora to those in real world is highly skewed. You cannot even find one critic of his. Even Nardendra Modi will have more critics than Anurag Kashyap. Does that mean Anurag Kashyap is more loved than Modi? That’s ridiculous. The reason given is that Quora is only used by intelligent people and only intelligent people love Anurag Kashyap. That’s a highly preposterous claim and just another example of how Quora manufactures consent.

-There are provocative questions like “What do you think of people haven’t seen Gangs Of Wasseypur”? In other words, they mean “What should be done to people who have no interest in Gangs of Wasseypur?” It’s a well-made film but not everyone has interest in films like these. Not everyone has to watch it to fulfil their lives. Watching highbrow cinema doesn’t get one admission to Mensa. Religious fanatics share this parochial outlook with them. They too think that their religion is the best and anyone who doesn’t follow their religion is a loser. Strangely, the religious fanatics are ridiculed for such bigotry but the movie buffs are hailed as the champions of democracy.

-Quora is professed as a saviour of humanity. But what Quora has done is nothing new. Yahoo Answers did the same thing for years (it still does) but people shunned it by saying that they didn’t have time for such online activities.

-Another autocratic claim made at Quora, which I wrote about in my previous post, is that All India Bakchod is extremely popular amongst India’s youth. Just like Saddam Hussein’s “victory” with one hundred percent votes, it’s preposterous. When more than ninety-nine percent of India’s youth would not have even heard of AIB, this only speaks of their bigotry; their utter disregard for the common young people is a reflection of the class divisions flaring up in India.

-Most of the Quora users love BJP. The reason given is that most of the sensible Quora users are intelligent and educated. Hence, they love BJP. It implies, that everyone who loves BJP is smart and intelligent.

-There is a typical question that the happy family of Quora likes to ask “What advice would you give to your children or so-and-so?” Among the typically lame answers, one is “I will ask them to sign up for Quora”. Again, it’s an obviously sycophantic reply to manufacture consent.

-It is filled with racist questions and answers. The sole purpose of flashing those questions is to spread hate and bigotry.

There is no doubt that Quora is a good tool for sharing information but the cultization of Quora is extremely dangerous. Like religion, it is getting misused. It’s all about manufacturing consent by government and media to control people. Unless Quora learns to respect common people, the day is not far when it will turn into a hub of extremists.