I watching a programme last night on neutrinos making their journey into CERN at a speed faster than light and as those neutrinos pass through the detectors they make little spikes in otherwise flat lines. While the commentators focussed on how this means that we could go back in time my mind was fixated on those little spikes. I wondered if this is how my mind is with spikes in otherwise a flat line and if I don’t catch those spikes and put them down then they disappear. Maybe I can do even better and connect the different spikes and have my own neutrino dawn. Maybe not ! I don’t need a big expensive particle accelerator to create and catch my neutrinos. They happen in my head all the time, all I need is some time to sit down and think about them it all comes together.
I look at the European financial crisis and high inflation in the middle of a British recession and wonder why hasn’t it come sooner. I look at the economic model of Europe where there is more talk of distributing the pie and less talk about creating the pie and I wonder how can this be sustainable. It was sustainable so far because when the Western world went into a recession the world raw material prices dropped due to a lack of demand which led to low inflation and that helped the economies to get back into growth. But that has all changed now as my countrymen and my Chinese comrades increasingly consume more and more and given finite resources there is continued inflation which puts even more strain on Western consumers struggling with recession. The only way out for these countries is to increase the size of the pie and to reduce what they take from it, this way they will be able to sustain their living standards. We live in a world where relative perceptions are more important than absolutes and as Western consumers see their purchasing power dwindle in developing countries the misery will be even more and will be felt by even those in the Western world who have been spared by the recession.
I look at China as the big player in India’s neighbourhood and I think it is the best thing that has ever happened to 21st century India. It is forcing India to shed its unique combination of laziness, lack of concern and ignorance. It is almost forcing India’s hand that if it doesn’t ramp up its relationship with its neighbours and even further afield countries like Vietnam , China will get there first if it hasn’t already. Apart from this push factor, there is also a pull factor as these countries need to balance their relationship with China, hedge their bets and get a better deal overall. All in all this means a more globally aware and connected India and I think a big reason for that is China. So in these times of lack of confidence in free market competition, I say competition is good even in the case of international diplomacy.
Which leads me back to neutrinos and the ability to travel back in time. I wonder why there is this fascination to travel back in time. As it is we don’t read enough of history and where we do, we refuse to take any lessons from it and there is this whole business of recreating/reimagining/reinventing the future as if is was unconnected to our past and present. Or maybe that is why we want to go back in time to recreate the past.
October 20, 2011 at 6:01 pm
I think the desire to go back into the past is partly due to an absolute conviction that now we know what is going to happen, we can choose differently. What we naively deny ourselves is the knowledge of a million parallel past and futures… to ensure we are never ever in control. Ie, we might not go back to our past or even if we were randomly that lucky we might choose a different future than what we intended.
October 20, 2011 at 6:08 pm
As far as euro gloom my thoughts today were also morbid in this regard… I was thinking if a future Wd arrive when we would no longer be able to listen to opera and classical music… so what is the use if we have children with voices like domingo if nobody Wd want to listen them… consume less yes but who will make those choices on what we consume less off… for eg I Wd love if we killed all reality shows on television and advertisements… who else Wd have this on the top of their list? Has anyone calculated how many more mobile devices can be manufactured given some of its ingredients are finite resources… can we give this up?