Connected, yet alone.

Even the most introverted of us aren't completely asocial. There is always that need to be validated, accepted and appreciated, unless you’re some monk.

We are always connected to our digital avatars, socializing with over a thousand other phantoms plugged in. It’s so convenient to post minute by minute updates about yourself and your life and starting to believe this false notion how all of us are one big connected family.  But are we, really? Our relationships are sometimes just one log out/deactivate button away from ending. Poof! And the phantom is no more.

Somewhere, something seems to be lost. Social networking has made our communication easier and at the same time there’s lesser meaning attached to it. A snippet of conversation shared in the real world has the power to metamorphose into a memorable experience that could evoke the same memories and rush of emotions actually felt in the past. It’s not just the words that are an essential component of our communication but the warmth of the actual presence, the soul stirring eye contact, the magic of touch and the unspoken language of the two individuals in the same time-space coordinates. I shudder to think the hopelessness that will ensue when we all will finally acknowledge the futility of the current model of social networking.

Today, there is a bombardment of messages and a lot to escape from an offline life. More so on days when you suddenly become important because it is your birthday. I have this weird habit. I switch off my phone and deactivate all my online accounts to enjoy a depressing existential crisis every birthday. The reason being, the wishes or tweets or messages are nowhere as real as the sentiments they proclaim to display.

Let the Internet be a tool for documenting memories and keeping a track of interactions because without external stimulation we all would go insane. Meanwhile, remember that isolation is standing, smirking in the background as we fool ourselves in the illusory World Wide Web, waiting to grip its steely fingers on us at our vulnerable best.

Wannabe Engineers

What prompted me to write this post was this utterly shocking piece of news:

“80 per cent of the 1 million engineers graduating every year in India are not real engineers.”

To me, as a student who dreams about developing ground breaking software and giving wings to creativity and innovation in the industry, this sets a grim fog over my bright visions.

Since there has been such a rampant encroachment of the populace on the engineering arena, the true essence of what it means to be an engineer seems to be lost in the chaos.

It would be wrong on my part to define something I do not truly understand yet. Moreover, stating a few characteristics would mean pigeonholing myriad personalities into a baser identity. What would be an inherent trait is that a true engineer is anyone who can realize ideas and theories into practical, working machines. 

(Please do not get the false implication here that engineers are some sort of demigods and the rest are just lesser mortals. I too accept your worldview that the world needs all kinds of minds to develop.)

Anyway. Having had the opportunity to be in close observation of pseudo engineers, allow me to point out a few characteristics of this species.

You are a ‘Wannabe Engineer’ if:

• Machines and nerdy talk bore you to death.
• You subscribe to the popular belief system that no other degree is as easy and prestigious as an engineering degree.
• You think creativity is just about art, music, literature and not code or circuits.
• You think owning an expensive smartphone and being a pro at the latest games makes you some sort of a whiz.
• You are unaware of your inherent inclination.
• You’re too lazy to dream beyond the Great Indian Engineering Dream
• You cannot imagine using the Internet for purposes other than copy pasting and social networking.
• You’re completely oblivious to the tricks of your trade; plagiarize research papers and fake your projects.
• You're getting offended by now.

Now, entrance examinations have gotten insanely hard to crack (which should've avoided this fiasco) but these filters have been rendered useless by an increase in the institutions accepting everyone from dummies to genuinely passionate ones who couldn't prove their mettle in the rush for prestigious institutes. Moreover, these pseudos cram their way up the corporate ladder armed with an MBA degree to belittle the ones who choose to stick to their not so flashy technical backgrounds.

The humble engineer is then bound to lose direction in this melee of carving out an existence..

This desperately needs to change! What we need is a radical shift in consciousness. 

I beg, literally beg, to all those on their career crossroads to introspect and make informed decisions about their own futures as well as the future of the integrity of the entire engineering community standing on the brink of a bleaker tomorrow.

To non pseudos, instill every bit of your soul into the projects you develop. Let this shattering news item embolden you to catalyze a change in scenario. The perks are awesome and the jobs sure yield a fortune but let that not be your sole motivation. The world needs intrinsically fueled people doing things because they matter to them, even more.

As long as people refuse to discover their own dreams, wannabes will continue to exist shielding themselves with excuses, laziness, mediocrity and societal pressures. 

I hope this changes, rather I want this to change. I am no schadenfreude but the extinction of this ‘Wannabe Species’ would give me a joy impossible to put down in words... 

The Interspecies Internet and the Interplanetary Internet

These have to be THE coolest ideas ever!

Let me begin with a very picturesque description of the current Internet of Things taken from one of my dearest books- The New Digital Age by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen at Google.

“The Internet is among the few things humans have built that they don’t completely understand. What began as a means of electronic transmission-room sized computer to room sized computer-has transformed into an omnipresent and endlessly multi-faceted outlet for human energy and expression. It is at once tangible and in a constant state of mutation, growing larger and more complex with each passing second. It is a source for tremendous good and potentially dreadful evil, and we’re only just beginning to witness its impact on the world stage.

The Internet is the largest experiment involving anarchy in history. Hundreds of millions of people are, at each minute, creating and consuming an untold amount of digital content in an online world that is not truly bound by terrestrial bounds. This new capacity for free expression and free movement of information has generated the rich virtual landscape that we know today. Think of all the websites you've ever visited, all the emails you've sent and stories you've read online, all the facts you've learned and fictions you've encountered and debunked. Think of every relationship forged, every journey planned, every job found and every dream born, nurtured and implemented through this platform. Consider too what the lack of top-down control allows: the online scams, the bullying campaigns, the hate group websites and the terrorist chat rooms. This is the Internet, the world’s largest ungoverned space.

As this space grows larger, our understanding of nearly every aspect of life will change, from the minutiae of our daily lives to more fundamental questions about identity, relationships and even our security. Through the power of technology, age old obstacles to human interaction, like geography, language and limited information, and a new wave of human creativity and potential is rising. Mass adoption of the Internet is driving one of the most exciting social, cultural and political transformations in history, and unlike earlier periods of change, this time the efforts are fully global. Never before in history have so many people, from so many places, had so much power at their fingertips. And while this is hardly the first technological revolution in our history, it is the first that will make it possible for almost everybody to own, develop and disseminate real time content without having to rely on intermediaries.

And we've barely left the starting blocks.”

  

So this is our Internet today- fascinating and enigmatic as it could ever be. But there are magnificent surprises yet to come.

The Interspecies Internet 

Today, the Internet is dominated by humans alone. This exciting new prospect is an effort to include other species of our planet into this network. Animals are proved to be conscious, emotional, intelligent and self-aware.

For example, Dolphins were provided with an interface consisting of a few keys underwater. Every keystroke would sound a distinct computer generated whistle which would prompt and action such as giving them a ball to play with or maybe be food.

Now, the dolphins weren't trained at all. They starting exploring this device and hitting the keys. Soon enough, they were using this interface according to their needs and moods.

Cool right? Check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K7aXWVD4IPA

The question was how to communicate with other intelligent sentient species of our planet sharing a common sensory environment with us which led to the birth of this idea. After all, the Internet shouldn't be monopolized and restricted to one species alone! The implementation of this idea will create an Internet must richer in scope and content. Even the devices we use such as the mouse will be rendered obsolete and those based on natural speech and gestures, replicating the way we naturally communicate, will start to flourish.

Dr. Vint Cerf who formulated the TCP/IP architecture and is regarded the Father of the Internet is a key figure in this project. He is also involved in this another amazing project called the Interplanetary Internet.

The Interplanetary Internet is basically a conceived network in space, consisting of set of network nodes which can communicate with each other at the speed of light. In the Star Wars expanded universe, the Holonet functions much like an interplanetary version of the Internet, with near instantaneous networking between computing devices over long distances. It is a major source of news and information, and is central to much of galactic culture and history.

This is an operation between the Earth and Mars. The Interplanetary Internet is operating on an international space station. It is a part of a space craft that is orbiting around the sun having a path between these two planets. The ARPANET which originally funded the development of the Internet is trying to realize this goal of designing a space craft to get to the nearest star in a 100 years’ time.

Ultimately, all these ideas and efforts are in a direction establishing an efficient communication with an alien community from another world. I can hardly wait to see how this all unfolds..

Am I a Slave to Virtual Reality?

Log in. Update. Like. Poke. Comment. Share. More Like-Comment-Share. Bored. Want a break. Deactivate. Ends up depressed. Return. Repeat.

That’s how a typical Facebook activity looks like and is callously dumped into a category of social networking addiction. Of course it is! But it wouldn't harm to have a longer look at it..

Instead of it being social networking addiction, I feel that we have ended up being more attached to our friends than social media in itself.

Having quick access to our ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ and getting an opportunity to express our best selves in a matter of few clicks and keystrokes is amazing, in fact very thrilling. It is self-gratifying to be ‘liked’ by this huge magnitude of people. Moreover, it is also very self-affirming to adore one’s immaculate virtual avatar that glorifies all positives (inherent or not.)

                  “The artifact of your social life makes you feel better.”

Everyone can now advertise their uniqueness. The attractive flaunt their charisma, the hopeless romantics profess their infinite love, the sassy fire their witty bullets, the rebels can finally make themselves heard and all enjoy their piece of cake.

But steadily, a feeling catches up. The feeling that says ‘Hey! You are just another meaningless dot in this Universe of people who are too busy to admire anyone but themselves.’

That’s when you deactivate, secretly hoping someone will miss you enough to erase out that feeling and get you online again. And unfortunately, the same vicious cycle continues.

There can be no solution if one continues to ignore the void within. People are too afraid to be alone with themselves and their thoughts. Why do we keep encouraging superficial relationships? We need to explore and love ourselves first.

You would wonder how this connects here. All problems in this world stem out of denial and an inability to understand and accept ourselves. When you are busy admiring your virtual avatar, you just love the part of you that you display for others to love.

Technology cannot substitute for something you must create for yourself. If you are getting in bed with your smartphone glued to you and if you are wasting away before your computer screen, GET A LIFE and stop whining that virtual reality ruined you.

It is very easy to defame these new mediums of human bonding. But are they really as fundamentally flawed? I don’t think so.

Our brains are amazingly designed. It adapts into neural patterns similar to those of people we meet quite often. A study concluded that the same neural patterns were formed due to our social networks. Social networks highlight our commonalities and initiate more frequent contact that ends up enriching our interpersonal relationships. For man being a social animal, things couldn't get any better.

The problem occurs when communication is not all nice and uplifting, which I would like to emphasize, is not a fault of social media as popularly perceived. Our brains haven’t changed nor have our real world networks. Now the question remains for us to resolve- how will we fit in new technologies into our real world social networks for a better life.

So the next time you break down juggling your piles of mails, texts, whatsapps, tweets, likes and comments, take a moment to reflect upon what your priorities are. Be mindful about the time you spend cultivating your virtual reality.

Because, in the end, you definitely CAN have the best of both worlds!