Well right now I am watching "bowling for columbine" on the Columbine High School Killings and have paused the movie because I have to write this down
Yesterday I was actually watching 'friends' before that, and in there Phoebe says that Monica is "High maintaining". Now I didn't actually get the way it meant. I had a fair idea, but wanted to be sure. So as I always do, I paused the series and hit the web. .
As I was surfing and looking for an explanation I came across a site askmen.com.Well it was a lot of stuff about various things, about how to dress and carry oneself and talk to girls, and an article on what high maintaining girl friends actually are.
As I drifted to another article called Men's Body Image: The Brad Pitt Syndrome. The Article discussed on how Men today are under pressure, Indirectly to go in for a Greek god like body.Since it had the actual words like theory and syndrome in the heading, I had to read it. And believe me it was awesome. I am pasting a paragraph here.
"One place to see this difference between men and women is in advertising -- not in the pictures, but the text. In publicity directed towards women, advertisers coo and cajole, urging them to a thousand different tasks: Redefine Your Profile, Use Your Heart, Free Your Mind. They're talking to the women's souls, while the product they're selling is for the body. Advertising for men's fashion and body care tends to be strong and silent, as if we're still a little embarrassed to spend time on such superfluous frills."
Coming back to the movie, here the high school kids have killed fellow students and now every one is coming out with their own theory about who might have influenced them. Since everything the kids did was under the microscope people knew that they used to listen to Marilyn Manson. The strongest contender turns out to be some rock artist called Marilyn Manson.
I am going to go back at the movie and quote him verbatim here
"When I was a kid growing up music was the escape, that was the thing that had no judgment. You can put on a record and that's not going to yell at you for the way u are dressed but is actually going to make you feel good about it.
The two by products of the whole tragedy were "violence in entertainment" and "gun control". And how perfect as those were the two things that we were going to talk about in the up coming elections. And also then we forgot about the Monica Lewinsky and we forgot that the president was shooting bombs overseas. Yet I am a bad guy, because I sing some rock and roll songs.Who is a bigger influence, the president or Marilyn Manson? I would like to think me, but I am gonna go with the president. Interviewer: Do you know that was the day when columbine happened united states dropped more bombs on kosovo than any other time during the war? Marilyn Manson: Yeah I do know that, and I think that is really ironic you know that nobody said that wow, maybe the president had an influence on this violent behavior. Because that's the way media wants to take it and spin and turn it into fear, Because then you are watching the television, you are watching the news, you are being pumped full of fear. There's floods, there's aids, there's murder, cut to commercial, buy the Acura buy the Colgate, if you have bad breath they are not going to talk to you, if you have got pimples the girl is not going to fcuk you, and its just a campaign of fear and consumption and that is all that it is based on.That is the whole idea, that keep everyone afraid and they will consume. That's as simple as it can be boiled down to."
Why am I quoting this thing here?? Because I believe that what he said was very true, and I had reached the same realization after reading the novel by Michael Crichton, which was called "State of Fear"
In the novel, the idea was that we are not moving towards any global warming, but actually towards the next Ice Age. But after the cold war is over, government needs a new kind of fear to control people. To make them think in something. So now there is Aids, and Global Warming and what not, just to fill up up the empty space left after the fear of war with soviet union.
But since I am a marketing chap, I had also thought that this is what advertisements do all the time. And in the "Great Indian Laughter Challenge", some participant had very humorously said, that " I donot watch T.V. Because after watching TV for 6 hours when I get up, I start feeling that I have dandruff in the hair, my teeth are yellow, my skin is cracked and I am no good in any way".
Isn't that what all the advertisements talk about??? About helping out people to be more acceptable? But who is making the standards that what is acceptable and what is not.
If pot bellies were ok, then who would go to the gymnasium?
Romans used to feed themselves, and then vomit the food, and then eat again because they loved eating. But here in this world what are we doing. We get a job, we ride a car.We make escalators, so that we are not tired when we climb the stairs to our office, then we make more similar technology that reduces work, then we eat as if we worked so hard(physically), and since that is prone to give you a bulging belly, we invent more machines on which you are supposed to work out on to burn calories.
Who gets a job? The scientist who invents escalators, the company that makes them, the advertiser who sells them, and the company who make those calorie burning machines, and the gym guy where you go.
Wouldn't have been easier, that you had walked to work and climbed the stairs??? Well I know it sounds a little theoretical and its not that simple. But I hope it illustrates the point.
One of MICA Lecture Series had a lecturer called Mr. Picard from Sweden who specializes in media. He also had made an important point. That at any given time, technology always addresses the most crucial problem being faced by a society. Most of the technology that we have was invented in the west. Most of the technologies that we have were made by a society who had vast amount of land, and little population. And that led to industries and machines. They were supposed to fulfill the shortage of labor. But what are the today's technology about?? Well the answer my friend is TIME. And he has said a very apt thing.
Because as you see, the advent of computer was initially to aid people as machines. But gradually they became time saving things. Google is getting popular not because it feeds our "quest for knowledge". Because it saves time by being more accurate. Because before google, yahoo and MSN were also in the same search business. But to arrive at the same page, you had to work more and took you hours of surfing. Now google has it all arranged in order of relevance and by an engine that works on Latent Semantic Algorithm. And boy, you should see the way they work.
So every day, more and more technology is evolving to save our time. Time saved, so that we can work more. What do you think makes a GDP rise. The same population of 100 was working yesterday and producing something worth 100 people. But today the 100 people are producing as if 1000 people were living in the country. Our country might have the highest population. But effective population is higher in United States. That is, with 100 people in our country we will produce 100 rupees, But in U.S. same hundred people will produce 5000 rupees.
So effective population of our country is suppose 100 then effective population of U.S. can be said as 5000/100= 500.
So we may be grater in numbers, but they are much greater than us in numbers. And our workaholic civilization is producing as if not 6 billion people will produce, but as if 6 billion thousand people will produce. Its just that the rest of the people are non-existent.
After writing the above things I have realized that what I have stated above is a cool way of looking at things and may be some sort of index can be made out of it. I mean real academic stuff with all the jargons. Because most of the knowledge is actually making a simpler way to understand things. Like how Newton with his theory, that doesn't work anywhere except the see-able world(I mean the larger bodies or the subatomic world) is knowledge. Because he helps us make sense out of this world and makes it fairly predictable. Hmmmm....So are we afraid of an unpredictable world.....????
If I keep on writing, I will never stop. Because one idea leads to another and another. I had promised myself that all I will write is what Marilyn Manson said. But look where have I ended up. So I better go back and watch the movie.
Keep thinking
Godspeed
Yesterday I was actually watching 'friends' before that, and in there Phoebe says that Monica is "High maintaining". Now I didn't actually get the way it meant. I had a fair idea, but wanted to be sure. So as I always do, I paused the series and hit the web. .
As I was surfing and looking for an explanation I came across a site askmen.com.Well it was a lot of stuff about various things, about how to dress and carry oneself and talk to girls, and an article on what high maintaining girl friends actually are.
As I drifted to another article called Men's Body Image: The Brad Pitt Syndrome. The Article discussed on how Men today are under pressure, Indirectly to go in for a Greek god like body.Since it had the actual words like theory and syndrome in the heading, I had to read it. And believe me it was awesome. I am pasting a paragraph here.
"One place to see this difference between men and women is in advertising -- not in the pictures, but the text. In publicity directed towards women, advertisers coo and cajole, urging them to a thousand different tasks: Redefine Your Profile, Use Your Heart, Free Your Mind. They're talking to the women's souls, while the product they're selling is for the body. Advertising for men's fashion and body care tends to be strong and silent, as if we're still a little embarrassed to spend time on such superfluous frills."
Coming back to the movie, here the high school kids have killed fellow students and now every one is coming out with their own theory about who might have influenced them. Since everything the kids did was under the microscope people knew that they used to listen to Marilyn Manson. The strongest contender turns out to be some rock artist called Marilyn Manson.
I am going to go back at the movie and quote him verbatim here
"When I was a kid growing up music was the escape, that was the thing that had no judgment. You can put on a record and that's not going to yell at you for the way u are dressed but is actually going to make you feel good about it.
The two by products of the whole tragedy were "violence in entertainment" and "gun control". And how perfect as those were the two things that we were going to talk about in the up coming elections. And also then we forgot about the Monica Lewinsky and we forgot that the president was shooting bombs overseas. Yet I am a bad guy, because I sing some rock and roll songs.Who is a bigger influence, the president or Marilyn Manson? I would like to think me, but I am gonna go with the president. Interviewer: Do you know that was the day when columbine happened united states dropped more bombs on kosovo than any other time during the war? Marilyn Manson: Yeah I do know that, and I think that is really ironic you know that nobody said that wow, maybe the president had an influence on this violent behavior. Because that's the way media wants to take it and spin and turn it into fear, Because then you are watching the television, you are watching the news, you are being pumped full of fear. There's floods, there's aids, there's murder, cut to commercial, buy the Acura buy the Colgate, if you have bad breath they are not going to talk to you, if you have got pimples the girl is not going to fcuk you, and its just a campaign of fear and consumption and that is all that it is based on.That is the whole idea, that keep everyone afraid and they will consume. That's as simple as it can be boiled down to."
Why am I quoting this thing here?? Because I believe that what he said was very true, and I had reached the same realization after reading the novel by Michael Crichton, which was called "State of Fear"
In the novel, the idea was that we are not moving towards any global warming, but actually towards the next Ice Age. But after the cold war is over, government needs a new kind of fear to control people. To make them think in something. So now there is Aids, and Global Warming and what not, just to fill up up the empty space left after the fear of war with soviet union.
But since I am a marketing chap, I had also thought that this is what advertisements do all the time. And in the "Great Indian Laughter Challenge", some participant had very humorously said, that " I donot watch T.V. Because after watching TV for 6 hours when I get up, I start feeling that I have dandruff in the hair, my teeth are yellow, my skin is cracked and I am no good in any way".
Isn't that what all the advertisements talk about??? About helping out people to be more acceptable? But who is making the standards that what is acceptable and what is not.
If pot bellies were ok, then who would go to the gymnasium?
Romans used to feed themselves, and then vomit the food, and then eat again because they loved eating. But here in this world what are we doing. We get a job, we ride a car.We make escalators, so that we are not tired when we climb the stairs to our office, then we make more similar technology that reduces work, then we eat as if we worked so hard(physically), and since that is prone to give you a bulging belly, we invent more machines on which you are supposed to work out on to burn calories.
Who gets a job? The scientist who invents escalators, the company that makes them, the advertiser who sells them, and the company who make those calorie burning machines, and the gym guy where you go.
Wouldn't have been easier, that you had walked to work and climbed the stairs??? Well I know it sounds a little theoretical and its not that simple. But I hope it illustrates the point.
One of MICA Lecture Series had a lecturer called Mr. Picard from Sweden who specializes in media. He also had made an important point. That at any given time, technology always addresses the most crucial problem being faced by a society. Most of the technology that we have was invented in the west. Most of the technologies that we have were made by a society who had vast amount of land, and little population. And that led to industries and machines. They were supposed to fulfill the shortage of labor. But what are the today's technology about?? Well the answer my friend is TIME. And he has said a very apt thing.
Because as you see, the advent of computer was initially to aid people as machines. But gradually they became time saving things. Google is getting popular not because it feeds our "quest for knowledge". Because it saves time by being more accurate. Because before google, yahoo and MSN were also in the same search business. But to arrive at the same page, you had to work more and took you hours of surfing. Now google has it all arranged in order of relevance and by an engine that works on Latent Semantic Algorithm. And boy, you should see the way they work.
So every day, more and more technology is evolving to save our time. Time saved, so that we can work more. What do you think makes a GDP rise. The same population of 100 was working yesterday and producing something worth 100 people. But today the 100 people are producing as if 1000 people were living in the country. Our country might have the highest population. But effective population is higher in United States. That is, with 100 people in our country we will produce 100 rupees, But in U.S. same hundred people will produce 5000 rupees.
So effective population of our country is suppose 100 then effective population of U.S. can be said as 5000/100= 500.
So we may be grater in numbers, but they are much greater than us in numbers. And our workaholic civilization is producing as if not 6 billion people will produce, but as if 6 billion thousand people will produce. Its just that the rest of the people are non-existent.
After writing the above things I have realized that what I have stated above is a cool way of looking at things and may be some sort of index can be made out of it. I mean real academic stuff with all the jargons. Because most of the knowledge is actually making a simpler way to understand things. Like how Newton with his theory, that doesn't work anywhere except the see-able world(I mean the larger bodies or the subatomic world) is knowledge. Because he helps us make sense out of this world and makes it fairly predictable. Hmmmm....So are we afraid of an unpredictable world.....????
If I keep on writing, I will never stop. Because one idea leads to another and another. I had promised myself that all I will write is what Marilyn Manson said. But look where have I ended up. So I better go back and watch the movie.
Keep thinking
Godspeed
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