Random chat conversation, a result of a status message. Good topic, slightly conflicting points of view. Interesting in parts, dull in the middle. Can't be arsed to format this further.
Jimmy: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2947772,prtpage-1.cms
Badrinath: interesting article
but he gets a bit defensive about his choice of career
free to chat?
True, he paints his choice of career as far more "pleasurable" universally
Badrinath: yeah, that is quite silly, my guess is defensiveness
anyhoo,
the world is quite full of mediocrity
this one guy laments that people spent so much time for JEE
Jimmy: but still, it's not that he has nothing to say.
Badrinath: what he fails to see is that people who score higher, generally tend to learn faster, hence on average are more talented
and places like the IITs are where such people congregate
you learn a lot, LOT more from competing with people like this than you ever would if you were content in a BA in what-ever-he-was-doing
he also seems slightly bitter, at times - " Some days, I think of those boys from another time. They are mostly bankers in
Jimmy: true, and yet, it shows that the IITs are the only place where "the best" would congregate. For so strongly have we ... hard coded into our minds the notion that science/engineering alone is the only outlet for "true intelligence"
Badrinath: most of those guys probably lived a "fuller" life than he did, just because money can buy you so much
"true intelligence" means you can do well at a lot of things
some people may have a specific talent in say, a musical instrument, or an art form
that doesn't make them "conventionally" intelligent
they are just talented in their sphere of activity
(which means if you have "real intelligence" you SHOULD be able to do well in science/maths)
Jimmy: Oh, but that is EXACTLY what I am trying to say: you think that doing well in music / sports does not require intelligence, but mere skill. However, to understand music / take quick decisions during sports / to create art requires a different kind of intelligences.
There are, as far as I rem, 7 kinds of intelligence(s)
Badrinath: hmm, i have no idea on the 7 types
Jimmy: and we have been thought to accept only one of them, the mathematical/problem solving kind as intelligence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
Badrinath: one vital thing - before we begin to talk about "doing well" in a field, we need to realize that the world on average is quite mediocre. a fair amount of hard work and a rub of the green will, regardless of talent, get you quite far
as important as talent is, in world as chock full with mediocrity as this one, talent is still second to hard work
Jimmy: yes. But while hard work etc may take you far on the road, what is lamentable is that there are no choices of roads, and there is a hierarchy of roads .
Badrinath: that is inevitable
professions like engineering and medicine are the ONLY way moderately talented people can make money
the percentage of artists (out of all artists) doing well and the %percentage of engg-ppl doing well (out of all engg-ppl) is VERY different
TCS will pay a talent-less but moderately hard working guy 3-point-something lpa to do work
unless you are REALLY lucky, art will NEVER pay as much to a mediocre artist
why?
Jimmy: why, indeed?
Badrinath: because having a painting hung from your bedroom wall is considerably less important than, say, re-tooling the database of a company
Jimmy: To answer this question, we need to ask a far more philosophical question: Is the entire existence of software, or databases, or even telephones, "necessary"
Let us recurse backwards in time, and ask,
(btw I agree with you, but I am just arguing for the sake of it)
Badrinath: ah
at the end of the day, we all want money. full stop. some of us delude ourselves into thinking that we don't care about money. but we do. when we don't have enough, we feel the pinch
Jimmy: let us recurse to the time when there was no money :D
Ah money.,
Badrinath: paintings hung on walls look nice which is a lot less important than cold, hard cash for a company
ah, money indeed
Jimmy: no one contests that we need money
Badrinath: the root of all evils and the cornerstone of "a good life"
listen, we are all human. there is something eerily human about greed, avarice, what-have-you
just like there is something eerily human about xenophobia and violence
so, while we may need less money, we WANT more
Jimmy: see your comparison to a painting on a wall to a bridge-across-the-river is unfair: that painting can be seen as a rich indulgence, so its equivalent in technology is .. I don't know.. a super fancy cell phone.
Badrinath: analogy is slightly unfair, i'll give you that :P
but there is a lot more demand for the engg profession that there is for artists
(i count film people, animation people, etc ALSO as artists)
when demand is more, "good" companies try to pick out the talented ones
how do you lure them? money
so, average incomes are higher in the engg/medical streams
PLUS there is space for LOTS of people
in other streams highest incomes are good, but average incomes are terrible
so, the average person is drawn toward the former professions
still there?
so I'll reply later :D
12 comments:
There are too many of us and there is too little to do. So, what do we do? We create jobs that were never done by anyone before (or never needed any doing). And to make it spicier we slap a fancy title on to it, you know, so you can tell your friends.
A great artist envisioned the Internet. (Yes, quite a masterpiece! We love it). Today we are busy trying to maintain this behemoth and so we have jobs.
As an aside, we rant on about how there are no artists anymore! Many of those kindred
spirits may have been killed away from those lashes from leather belts.
PS: I did not intend to add anything useful to the conversation. :)
The conversation was scarcely useful itself.
@tsp you have got that knack for making things dramatic, don't you? "slapping a fancy title" -- icing on the cake :P
Jimmy: see your comparison to a painting on a wall to a bridge-across-the-river is unfair
why? see every picture that was painted, every song that was composed etc etc all fall in the category of not-necessary goods. They kind of create different emotions in living beings resulting in improvised standard of living. Same is the case with bridge, we don't need it. We can as well cross a water body using a ferry or worse swim across. Bridge merely improvises the standard of living just as art forms :)
baaaah!!! I am bored :P
But basically the quoted article was merely observing that the previous generation did not know any better. May be now that we have realised how wrong we were OR how little we knew, perhaps the next generation can be educated about the choices they have. And to answer that, we need to ask ourselves, "what choices are there?"
nice article, though the conversation delved mainly into a comparison, which i thought wasn't justified
@daka
by your logic, things like bread and biscuits mainly improve the standard of living, as they aren't really essential to our existence. what next? who needs gas-run-vehicles when we have bullock carts? :P
@tsp
knowing all your "choices" is important. but there may be a guy who absolutely loves music and may love the idea of making music, but he may be, at best, average at it. career choices have to depend on much more than seeing what you like and seeing what options are there. you actually have to be somewhat competent at your chosen profession.
for the distinctly average majority in this country of 1.2 billion, too much of a choice and too much freedom in making this choice may be catastrophic. given how indecisive and unsure of his/her capabilities the average person is, the monotony of an engineering job may actually be preferable to frequent changes in a line of work and the endless instability associated with such a high number of possibilities.
@blahsfamous
it was somewhat unfair, as i already mentioned before. but unjustified? what better comparison would you suggest?
and the comparison came into the picture only in the last third of the conversation ;)
@badri There's a flaw in that thinking. When most people make a choice they never know whether or not they will be good at it, do they? They work at it. They take time.
Engineers are not built overnight either. (Or even in four years for that matter)
This mediocrity argument seems to be taken too far. Someone who is mediocre at one thing might be better off doing something else he might be good at.
@tsp
everybody has a talent or at least a special knack for SOMETHING. not many are willing to work hard to find this something and be good at it, part of the reason being the herd mentality. besides, people are so used to shortcuts and quick paths, that few put in the hard work required, even if they like what they are doing. "instant success" is what so many want.
mediocrity is not just in terms of talent. true perseverance and hard work are more difficult to find.
"This mediocrity argument seems to be taken too far."
mediocrity :
moderate to inferior in quality
lacking exceptional quality or ability
The average citizen of the world is a very, very mediocre person. Isnt that the definition of "mediocre" anyway? :P
@badri...
thats precisely what I am saying... we can compare everything. Hence comparing painting in bedrooms and bridge across a river is fair. :D
post the funny ones... i mean the real funny ones too! :D
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