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dalanmendonca · 2 months

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Social resets and friend formation

It's February, it's raining in San Francisco and I'm thinking about friend circles.

When a person migrates, their social context doesn't migrate with them. And without your social context you are a different person.

I think it's taken me a while to feel less like a fish out of water and feel comfortable in my own skin. I'm not bothered too much anymore when someone doesn't understand my accent. I'm not worried if I am fitting in or looking different when I walk down the street. I am overall much less self-conscious and much more self-confident.

I feel like moving to the US made me introverted again. Why again? Because I used to be ultra introverted and shy in college. That changed over the course of my first job; and a few years later I had learned enough social skills to be indistinguishable from normal. That comfort evaporated when I moved to the US. I don't know if it was the new context, different accents or some sort of immigrant anxiety; I was initially very shy at the office cafeteria and wasn't comfortable enough to sit with strangers or strike up conversations. Would often eat alone and feel bad about it. Slowly I started to have meals with a few folks, built up courage to chat up strangers, and now I have some sort of a social circle in the office. It took time. No lesson here except that an uprooted tree needs time to grow roots again. But I think my ramp up from introvert to normal person is going faster here, given the skills I built up earlier.

Semi-relatedly, there's this sad topic of new friend formation dropping off drastically in your 30s. But I think most of us frame the issue incorrectly. We don't stop forming friends, we stop spending time in shared activities where we can form friends.

In life until our 20s, most of our friends came from school, sports, clubs, the locality, etc. and we formed friends because we just went along and did stuff with random strangers for hours on end. That I feel is the clue to friend formation. I bet anyone putting themselves in places where they repeatedly interact with a fixed set of folks is likely to find friends and community through it.

The change in our 30s is mix of:

Genuinely having less time (and energy)

Being comfortable being alone

Being less open minded about people

You can't counter this with a one-off trip or a networking events; unless you're really lucky! These encounters tend to be so brief that you're unlikely to get the superficial parts of a person and see their goodness in action. Playing a sport with consistent group of people, joining a scene (music, comedy, theatre), participating in a religious community, volunteering, etc. seem like activities that can counter this.

I think the most shameless hack you can do is co-opt capitalism into your service. I was pleasantly surprised when I was running a "side-hustle" and ended up becoming friends with my co-founders and some customers. Some really good conversations I've had are from a podcast that me and some friends are trying to start. Their economic impact isn't much, but I had a lot of fun! Go forth and conquer lonesomeness with shared activities!

#life #relationships

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dalanmendonca · 4 months

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Supplying our light

"For any given topic, there is a gap between the supply of what we actually know and the demand for what we feel we need to know. Everything that fills this gap is bullshit" For the longest time, humanity didn't have any answers to some big questions - why are we here, what should we do with our lives, how do we know what is right and wrong? Back then, philosophy was science was mostly religion. In hindsight we know that we desperately felt the need for some answers, so we made them up. We made frameworks centered around omnipotent omniscient beings who had laid down rules for us. These frameworks structured our lives and explained the world to us. Our desire to meet these heavenly beings eventually led to study the skies and jump into outer space where we found ... nothing. This has troubled many. Some want to go back to the comfort of made-up answers, some want to pretend science has all the answers. Neither is a sensible path. No matter how hard you pray, serious sicknesses will be better cured with a doctor's visit. And no matter how much you read about cognitive biases; it won't heal your from feeling envious about your neighbour. “The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”

Well modern problems need modern solutions. It's starts with understanding your values. It starts using our knowledge to set some sensible rules of co-operation.

When I saw the Prisoner's Dilemma video from Veritasium and saw the qualities of successful algorithms, it felt like receiving the Ten Commandments. Most delightful was how well these rules gel with human intuition. Mature individuals strive to be nice and forgiving to strangers. And when we experience behaviour we don't like. We usually avoid the person, or (ideally) make our needs clear and retaliate. Only immature individuals start fights or hold grudges - but everyone has their moment of weakness! He who hasn't felt the need to take an eye for an eye may raise their hand🤚

The meta-point here is we didn't need to make up this "answer". We as a species have gained enough knowledge to discover this truth about co-operation. So, we are on a quest to keep asking questions and trying our best to discover, not make up answers. It's a long quest and will need patience. Of course, then comes the hard part of respecting and acting in accordance with the wisdom of the answers. A whole different ball game.

#life #society #science #philosophy

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dalanmendonca · 6 months

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We have two quests in life - one to sustain materially and the other to sustain spiritually.

#life

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dalanmendonca · 8 months

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So banks, government agencies and other early adopters of computing have stuck using mainframes for long and were running out of talent to migrate or modernise those applications. Looks like AI might offer a path forward!

#technology

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dalanmendonca · 9 months

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The Enlightened view on productivity

Intro

I've been productivity geek for 20 years now. A geek and straight A right student from the time I slid out from the womb - I always loved organizing things and naturally developed a hobby around productivity tools. As I've journeyed from A student to professional over the past ; I've gone through the whole dance of planners, diaries, to-do apps, frameworks, etc. across various phases of life. Here's are my lessons hot takes on productivity followed by attempt to create a coherent perspective from it all.

Hot takes

Most common advice is focused on tools, this is the wrong level of the problem for 90% of people

If you stumble into productivity and self-help parts of YouTube (or even a bookshop), you'll find that people point to a certain tool as THE WAY to get organised.

Use Evernote, Notion, Obsidian, blah blah, … no no on go back to "good ol mindful pen and paper".

This is the wrong level of the problem for 90% of people. Because it assumes that everything else leading up to the tools is sorted out - which is usually not the case. If you're a student struggling to grasp a subject because you didn't attend lectures or read the textbooks, better note-taking might not help. If you're a professional stuck on project - changing your mailing app mostly won't do anything.

This advice is seductive because you can immediately apply it - it feels like Mario eating a mushroom and instantly becoming Super Mario!

This is an illusion.

90% of people will do fine using the default note-taking and to-do app their phone or PC came with. The things that matters more are factors like motivation, discipline and focus. Diagnosing, understanding and fixing your actual problem is a process full of uncertainty and (potentially painful) reflection.

At some point you have to decide focus on the output and forget about the tools. No tool is perfect and you can make most tools work. It's the habits and workflows that you build around the tool that matter much more.

Whatever we call productivity advice is actually a backward projection from success; and seeking productivity reflects a desire to be successful. Here success can be many things; being the smartest kid in class, or the wealthiest child in the family or having lots of followers.

The desire for productivity is a veiled desire for success. People haven't admitted it to themselves or are afraid/ashamed of saying it publicly. But anyone chasing productivity has an image of who they want to be/become.

Example, People report a complete flip in life priorities once they become parents. Things like work, titles, career, etc. that they chased for decades suddenly melt away. Why? Because having a child completely upturns what gives meaning to their life. Their definition of success changes from becoming Vice President to raising a child well.

A personal turning point for me was experiencing burnout while working at a startup. The burnout caused me re-evaluate my life priorities and detach my identity from work.

So what is your image of success that makes you want to be productive in a domain? Is that image of success something you chose yourself? Or are you chasing out of societal validation? The process to be productive changes completely when you start with questioning your identity and values.

The productivity industry preys on knowledge workers intellectuals like the beauty industry preys on women

Today there is a recognition and understanding that the beauty industry creates artificial scarcity of "beauty" by narrowing down the definition of female beauty through artificial standards and fake examples.

The same happens with productivity.

Sadly these are just ex post facto rationalisations. We have a tendency to mythologise people (and their choices). These articles feed that hunger. People who don't feel good about their station in life are vulnerable to any hock of shit that can improve their life. Young people who haven't seen how things work are especially vulnerable to this. I was once young people. And I have fallen for this, obsessing whether I should wake up at 4 AM to become like Tim Cook.

Task scheduling is a intellectually satisfying luxury

When I was in business school, we had an ultra-packed schedule. We had lectures, assignments, quizzes, group project, alumni visits, career mentoring sessions, club meeting, parties, blah blah. You want I didn't have time for? Taking in the serenity of life and setting up my todolist. We would fight tooth and nail to get in the asssignments of the day and maybe make some prep for whatever assignments, etc. were due tomorrow. My harsh realisation was my cool task planning during peacetime was just a way of entertaining myself because I didn't have HARD pressing issues in life to handle.

Your best productivity hacks is health (and sleep)

Good sleep is correlated with a longer life. So by sleeping more you can have more time … to be productive … and sleep more :D

Anyone who's worked more than few years understands that you can only stretch yourself so much until it becomes counterproductive and results in burnout.

Productivity advice assumes you are person with infinite willpower who never feels hungry, sad, horny, etc.

It also assumes your attention doesn't wander. But for the few of us; we are all distracted by Reddit, TikTok, TV, whatever.

It took me a long time to realise that most people aren't working 8 hours day. Between scrolling through mindlessly, meetings, etc. there's a lot of activity and filler work that … isn't quite work.

Macro/geo/other factors affect productivity more than your note-taking app or your reading speed

Things that affect productivity but don't count classic productivity

Being healthy

Being well read & educated

Having safety - economic/physical/

Being in harmony

Your salary and job security

What you choose to work on

Somebody chooses to go work in finance vs technology in 2008, who do you think has a better career.

Whatever flaws you have, people have done great things with those same flaws. RELAX

You're not a morning person who - oops you're doomed to a life of failure. Sorry those are the rules.

Actually, now. People have studied the habits of great artists and authors. Half of them are night-owls, the other half are early birds. Your preferences are not a character flaw.

Hemingway was a drunk, Einstein a smoker, and Euler was blind (towards the end of his life). Didn't stop them.

Doing what works for you, even if it works for silly/stupid/childish reasons is fine.

How "productivity" actually works

The facts about are life sadly painful - I am a diligent person making meticulous notes with all my work captured in notes and todo-list. I have elaborate nested folders for my documents, yada yada. A close friend has their work and life things strung together with ducktape and glue. Only when work pressure got super high did she starting a todolist. faints in disbelief

Yet on most common measures, health, wealth, salary, etc. me and My friend and I are pretty indistinguishable. One definite undeniable upside is when we travel or have present our papers somewhere - I am able to find and present my documents stylishly in a breeze. While my friend will scamper around and get flustered but somehow produce the documents.

The underlying metaphor for all of modern productivity is that of a machine. Faster, cheaper. Oddly, no one on their deathbed has been heard saying "I wish I had read my emails faster"

As if productivity is a system; but productivity is an ecosystem.Relying on often balance of relationships, tools, processes and temperaments.

Principles & tools to keep in mind

Still a few principles remain

Focus

Set realistic expectations with room for error

Focus on the habit for starters

Good times are precious and rare. They are a metastable state and we shouldn't think about getting there but focus on not getting into a rut.

Failure and gaps will come. So don't dwell on it and just focusing on bouncing back

If you have the luxury of it, Do things your intrinsically motivated about

Small consistent output is the rocket fuel for anything

this is because it gives a SHORT feedback loop

Show someone your work regularly

Follow your intuition on tools

hardcore tool refinement is a luxury for those who made it and a distraction for most. You can get 80% with everyday tools.

A fixed place and time can work wonders

link a frequently occurring trigger to it. After work; after my first coffee.

Winners are made in training, not on the field

We see the outcomes on the field. But those outcomes are a result of training.

E.g. How to be a creative writer >> Read a lot, write prolifically

E.g. How to be great sportsperson >> Obsess on progress during training

#productivity #life

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dalanmendonca · 11 months

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The real challenges of AI

The real challenge of AI is democratisation.

We are in middle of a boom in AI. While it may seem like a sudden explosion in the media; this moment has been building for 15+ years now. From the birth of the internet, to the huge explosion in online information, to algorithmic feeds, then voice assistants, and now at Generative AI/Large language feeds - every invention has grown on the bedrock of technologies before it.

Of course, the fervour we see now is from people experiencing a step change in technology. Till December 2022 you had to write eassy using your own brain and hands; come January 2023 you just provide a small prompt and voila! ChatGPT will write a whole essay for you. WOW.

But we've played this game many times before:

New technology is available

The technology gets hyped and people are promised a better future

Technology gets widely deployed

In the process of societal adoption, it gets co-opted by

Eventually, it gets completely owned by . The new boss is the same as the old boss. The average person is nowhere better.

One interesting aspect of computers is that they are comparatively much more accessible; order(s) of magnitude more accessible.

The steam engine was firmly on the capital side of the equation; it powered everything from trains to factories but it was a while before mechanisation entered the home and became accessible to the average person. Yet overtime we've given up on things like sewing machines and become strictly consumers.

Computing and the internet sit firmly in the middle. Almost by definition - every laptop & smartphone is the "means of production". The entire "internet" however is but a handful of companies; yet because of its inherently decentralised nature; everything from Mastodon to torrents and more can and do exist.

If it wasn't for that design; the internet would like the TV - with much less control in the hands of citizens.

The challenge with AI is to keep it's capabilities as democratically accessibly and user programable as possible; with the internet being the minimum bar. Thankfully with models being open sourced and even run on Raspberry Pi's, we are off to a good start! But we must remain watchful and make sure this happens.

People of my ilk (technologists) are gung ho about applying AI to anything and everything - but this question of democratisation is much fundamental and its effects more pervasive.

#technology #AI #democratisation #society

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dalanmendonca · 1 year

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ज्ञान

Hey hey hey, who randomly went to UCSC to talk to students about tech careers. Public speaking is easy for me, the drive back was the crazy part :D

#life #travel

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dalanmendonca · 1 year

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“Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments" —Isaac Asimov

#quotes

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dalanmendonca · 1 year

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Thank you to everyone who got me to 100 likes!

Wow 😂 - this is an auto-generated post from Tumblr. Thanks to the 37 bots and 2 humans who got me here.

#100 likes #tumblr milestone #thank you

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dalanmendonca · 1 year

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Axe and Magic

The Axe

It was a melancholic start to the year. It rained incessantly outside and the mood was grey. Then came the axe in the form of layoffs at "BigTech" firms with Google doing it's first major layoff ever. I was emotionally at-sea for 2 weeks as I reeled from the new of the Microsoft layoffs. As a 31 year old with sufficient financial savings and no kids or debts/loans hovering over me, I would be fine. But I'm also an immigrant who existence depends on having a job here and who had spent a lot of effort/time moving things around to get here. It would be annoying to put it mildly. I'm just happy that I coped by watching TV and reading books; and didn't take up my usual route of getting drunk/stoned/spaced out.

It is a tough time and I directly know multiple people who have been affected. One silver lining was the report that most tech workers are landing a job within 3 months. So this is more of a displacement that a destruction of tech jobs. They're moving away from more speculative areas to places of clearer ROI/need.

Layoffs also brought attention to economic iniquities with the tech industry itself with CEOs getting multi-million-dollar pay packets and no direct consequences while other bear the consequences of their decisions. People frame this as merely a moral problem, but it's a public policy one. France and Germany make it hard to layoff workers which means the wanton hiring that's triggering this is less likely to happen in the first. Of course, there is always the American claim that this makes industries "less dynamic". Ah, hiring and firing are but key sources of dynamism in an organisation not the quality of its talent, it's psychological safety or the ability of its workers to focus on their work.

It definitely felt horrible to realise that the big tech layoffs were largely financially motivated and felt opportunistic. Even accounting for economic contractions, the companies still earn billions in profit and pay dividends to shareholders. They face no chances of bankruptcy and could take a hit in profitability for a few years till they reallocate their human capital. But that would hurt the shareholders who are also common citizen and have financial interests in the stocks staying high. I don't mind this financial book rebalancing per se as long as people have safety nets; we should aim to minimize the suffering and disruption involved.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT took over the airwaves and I (like many others) was genuinely impressed by its capabilities.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." say Arthur C. Clarke; and that's truly what we have. After many years of research papers and demos, the world has access to some really cool new technology. The last time I was wowed similarly was when Google demoed Duplex. The excitement all around is palpable.

Creatives, technologists, and designers are excited by the possibilities.

Engineers are happy that they have something other than a new Javascript framework to look forward to.

Founders and Venture Capitalists are excited they have a new buzzword to add to their pitches and fool their LPs with.

All in all a good moment.

Personally, this feels like a truly transformative technology to me that will change a lot of worflows.

It's easy to see tech like this

Writing my emails, documents, and more.

Helping me compose things by providing inputs and bouncing off ideas

Summarising information

Enabling more programmatic creations for infinite games and custom movies

It is not as behind-the-scenes, as say nuclear fusion. It is also much more real and obvious than "blockchains" - can't believe we had to suffer through that.

Randoms

I watch a lot of Veep and am almost done with the show. It's a British show in American shows clothing. I also got really confused by my insurance claim payment process for one hot moment.

Me and Namrata spent a lot of time looking for a new place to rent; zeroed in one one - only to realise that our lease ends a month later than we thought. All this effort wasted uuuggghhh.

#life

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dalanmendonca · 1 year

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Fresh off the plane — My Yelp review of the USA

Spoiler alert — it’s a solid 3.8

My context

In August 2021, I moved to the USA in an attempt to put paid to my long-distance relationship, which like many things that began in 2019 had gone on too long). Things worked out — a new job and 2 visa changes later — I was reunited with my lover and became an official resident of San Francisco.

Changing countries is a monumental shift in lifestyle. Some even proclaim that “Geography is destiny”. From small things like how much to smile in photos to serious things like access to healthcare, the cards in the deck are different everywhere.

In India, I’ve spent 30 years growing up in Mumbai (née Bombay) and working across Hyderabad and Bangalore. While in the US, I’ve lived for about a year exclusively in San Francisco. Most importantly, I’m also a tall, handsome, well-educated, near perfect man (or so sayeth me my mom and wife). So, my experiences might not resonate with everyone. I write this for the pedantic joy of chronicling my new life and contrasting it with the past.

Now, on to the promised Yelp review.

The Good

Public services are amazing — I got my SSN (the de facto ID in the USA) and learners license in a breeze. Visiting the DMV was mildly chaotic but my work got done decently fast given the queue. No bribes or middlemen were needed. Relatedly, I was stunned when I saw the San Francisco Public Library — you can barely get access to such a well-resourced library even if you paid in India. 4.5/5

Systems — The idea of systems permeates life much more in the US. One example is traffic. We have traffic rules in India too, but nobody follows them. So, drivers and pedestrians (and cows and elephants) are in constant negotiation making things slower for everyone. In the US, because everyone obeys the traffic lights, cars can go faster and drivers don’t suffer random interruptions. Pedestrians can safely cross as long they do it at the correct time. There is order here, while India breathes chaos. This also means my commute is ~100% predictable in the USA whereas 5 kms can suddenly take 1.5 hours in India. People generally seem more law-abiding too. 5/5

Consumerism Olympic gold — If consumerism was a sport, USA would triumph harder than Michael Phelps. From Walmart to CostCo to BevMo, the USA is littered with stadium sized retail experiences and American consumers are blessed with choice. The depth and breadth of items available is staggering. The average Safeway here has more varieties of booze than most cities in India. From cheap Chinese stuff to boutique shit to luxury brands, it’s all here. You can try the same searches on Amazon.com and Amazon.in to experience the difference. 4/5

Weather, national parks and natural beauty — This was a real surprise to me. The USA has immense ecological diversity and does an amazing job in to protecting it through national parks. The national parks are well-maintained, have rangers patrolling for public safety, offer a good escape from urban life and a chance to see stunning natural beauty. I had my breadth taken away when saw a sky full of stars on a clear night in the Colorado sand-dunes. Almost started believing in God again. Coming from smoggy Bombay, I can literally see and smell the cleaner air here in California. 5/5

Insane economic prospects — Both the breadth & and depth of economic opportunities in the USA is staggering. Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Area51 👽, they’re all here. For 99% of fields, India lacks depth. Even in my domain of software where India has made some head way, most Indian companies are operating at the application layer, while the deeper domains like operating systems, etc. don’t have as many players or people. 5/5

The Meh

Food — American food is … pizza, burgers and coke? American companies have been a wee bit too successful at exporting it, so there’s no novelty eating what I can eat in India too. Obviously, the depth and quality of said foods is much better here. I deeply appreciate my access to many choices and varieties of steak. I also appreciate the beef isn’t banned here (unlike my home state of Maharashtra). That said, American food doesn’t hold a candle to the depth and breadth of Indian food. If the “7 wonders of the world” was a list about food, all 7 would easily come from India. Indian food is one of the things I miss the most. A big chunk of Indian food culture revolves around much small shops and street food vendors. They are the lifeblood of urban India. Whether you want a filter coffee and dosa to start your day, or a cup of ginger tea for an afternoon slump, or a quick vada pav as you commute back home; the streets of India have your covered. I’ve hardly seen anything of that sort in the USA. 2/5

Car driven landscape — India’s biggest retail unit is the kirana — a neighbourhood shop that sells everyday goods. There are millions of them, they’re everywhere and within walking distance of most residences. Heck my last house had a full store inside our complex (quite common in India). I was shocked when I found out that many USA complexes have nothing of that sort. There is nothing at walking distance and you have to pull out your car and drive for buying that packet of milk you might’ve forgotten. Living in American urban landscape feels like watching humans scavenge in the remains of an ancient city where cars used to live. 1/5

Urban aesthetics — The whole country looks like a dilapidated grey coloured blob. The road infra is old. I feel as if there was a construction boom some decades ago which suddenly stopped, and everything was put in maintenance mode. I did praise Walmart and CostCo for choice, but visually they’re literal grey soulless boxes. Mumbai has the gaping contrast of high-rise residential building and the world’s most expensive residence towering over middle-class homes, shanties, and slums. San Francisco neither has the towers nor the slums, it does have a smattering of homeless people though. The building heights in San Francisco are so low, squinting a little I almost feel I am in 1822 instead of 2022. 2/5

Personal space — This is a mixed bag and cuts both ways. In the US, while people are very sociable and polite, they maintain their distance, keeping work & life separate. Conversations are often superficial. In India, it won’t take 5 mins for someone to ask if you’re single, how much you earn, and try to set you up with their cousin for marriage; and then 5 mins later do that with person next to you. I like the personal space in the US. However, one downside of that is making new social connections becomes harder. 3.5/5

The Bad

Ridiculous financially optimized healthcare system — India has the classic health care problems. Not enough doctors, shitty facilities, poor people who can’t afford treatments, etc. I belong to a fortunate class of urbanities in India that can access & afford private health care, facing much fewer of these issues. You can book appointments online or just walk-in to the nearest doctor. The USA healthcare process is convoluted to put mildly. No one asks what your problem is, they want to know what your insurance is first. I had a moderately painful toothache and after calling 10 doctors and failing (either no reply or rejected because of insurance issues), I finally got an appointment for a week later. Jeez. God forbid if I had a more serious issue. Procedures are wildly overpriced. I think I paid $100 for a dental X-ray which would’ve cost $2 in India (at most). I find it appalling and absurd that this is the status quo in the same country that excels in medical R&D. That said, the USA has amazing emergency services that are super-fast and effective. In India, you’re on your own. -1/5

Drugs — There are entire blocks of San Francisco full of spaced-out junkies, swimming in trash, with needles and shit around them. This was scary and surreal to me. I work on Market St, an arterial road in San Francisco which after 10 pm transforms into a literal Gotham city with drug dealers and junkies in hoodies and masks going about shady shit openly with nary a word from the cops. Eek! 💉/5

Guns — America’s reputation with guns is well known. In my first few months in the US, every time I heard a loud noise I was like “OMG! WE HAVE A SHOOTER SITUATION! UNDER THE TABLES EVERYONE”. Fortunately, it was everyday things like tyre bursts and never an actual shooter. The never-ending stories of Walmart shootings, school shootings, and muggings have a decreasing but ever-present place in my head. I now interpret it as India’s rape problem. It’s bad, it is far from what it should be, but the reality is a far cray from what the media portrays it to be. 🔫☠️/5

Wrapping up

My experiences aren’t too different from an Italian immigrant who sailed to New York, a hundred years before me.

"I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things: First, the streets weren't paved with gold; second, they weren't paved at all; and third, I was expected to pave them."

Or to quote a TikTok “Now that I’m really looking at em .. this bitch kinda ugly”

I would still consider it an upgrade for me. Overall, I would rate USA a strong 3.8. Stop taking it easy in fundamental areas like healthcare, and it’s an easy 4.

As Winston Churchill famously (didn’t) say “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”. That moment might soon be here. I am an optimist and remain hopeful.

Bonus rant

A learning for me has is the moving between these countries involves a lot of trade-offs, but those trade-offs have gotten narrower. India might’ve slam-dunked USA until the 1700s, and USA might’ve slam-dunked India until 1991. But things have changed, and the comparison can’t be so abstract and pointed anymore. People slap monikers like “developed” and “developing” on entire countries. The expression encodes a colonial view of the world — here stand we, the wise & “developed”, there stand they the P̶o̶o̶r̶,̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶r̶d̶-̶w̶o̶r̶l̶d̶, “developing” savages.

Are western countries done? Nope! Progress is eternal. This vocabulary also ignores things taking a total back-slide. Should the once bustling but now abandoned city of Detroit still be called developed? As I mentioned above, many aspects are anything but developed. We need to cure ourselves of the mind virus of Anglocentrism.

Bonus pet peeves

USA needs jets, in the toilet [Graphic details about inferiority of toilet paper omitted but available upon request]

Tipping is bullshit. Raise the price and pay your staff.

Stop leaving my mail/deliveries on the porch or building entrance, give it to me in hand.

Why don’t houses have lights?! Why do I have to buy them separately?

Why do people have to earn leave? In India, you’re just granted leaves

Why are salary payments fortnightly? Make rent fortnightly too then?!

What’s with the feed the family and then some portion sizes?

#immigration #life #usa #India #Expat

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