bengaluru ki zameen par

It is amazing how much energy one needs to learn something completely new. Children seem to do it in a jiffy, but I (now on the wrong side of 25) find it quite difficult! Trying to learn a new programming language at work. It took me all week. Err, I was trying to learn it while watching the India-Australia test match at the same time. boo-hoo.

I saw Taare Zameen Par last monday. Yes on Monday. The movie tickets cost less than half the price on weekdays compared to the weekends. Bangalore is becoming a capitalists' paradise. Movie tickets cost a cool Rs. 300 in the weekends. (And I am "loving" it). In Bangalore a movie ticket is a commodity, an essential need, not a luxury. Who cares if everyone can't afford it? haa don't be silly. Even the roadside Paani-puri walah makes a killing in Bangalore. Anytime you go to him you might see a couple of babes from the North-East (who want their paani to be as teekha as the Manipuri mirchi), a hutta-kutta Punjabi (who wants more aloo in his puri), a Thambi (who wants the paani to be more khatta than his rassam), a gujju bhai (who wants the meetha paani), or maybe a Goan like me (and no I do not want beer instead of the paani). Hey, by the way that is a good idea. Maybe I should patent it.

Bangalore, or should I say, Bengaluru has become an international city, I don't need to tell you about its IT-BT success stories. Yet, there are 3 temples near my house. One of them wants to beat drums and blow the trumpet at 5 am in the mornings, and they want to close the pubs at 11:30 pm! Restaurants close much earlier at 10:30 pm. People on vehicles forget they are driving when they see temples. They give a holy beep and fold their hands, trying to look at the God/Goddess inside. Meanwhile the vehicle tries to make its way on its own through a crowded street full of stray dogs and kids. Either they trust machines (who knows it might be AI), or they think that God will take care of everything!

Coming back to the movie, I liked it, it reminds me of my childhood. I always used to score very good marks in history. Used to read it like a story and was fascinated by it. But our history teacher was too boring, she did all sorts of nonsense in class. Everything except history lessons. So I used to sit near the window and look outside in her class. But she used to get angry with me because I never paid attention to what she used to say . At that time I used to feel bad and think it is my fault somehow. Once another kid asked her why she picks on me even though I get good marks anyway. She said that she did it just for the heck of it!!! that set me free. That moment on I took only selected teachers seriously

I hated poetry in school. Our teacher would give us pages and pages of what she felt about the poem and we just had to reproduce that in exams. But now I find poetry so interesting. All those wonderful poems I read in school - I never understood their meaning at that time. But now that I do, I wonder how different it could have been had the teacher not forced her views on us.

In my point of view

Assume that you are in space standing on some planet. You know 5 other people each on a different planet. You all have been told that a large object will appear in the sky for some time, and you need to accurately say what you saw. Soon it is visible. There is an object in the sky, far away. It looks like a square to you with 1 dot in the centre. The other 5 people also see it. One sees 2 dots. One sees 3 dots. One sees 4 dots. One sees 5 dots. One sees 6 dots. If you all are asked what you saw seperately, each one of you will give a different answer. Now assuming all of you have seen a die before. If you know what the other 5 people saw. You might realise that it was actually a die.

In this example :-
To come to the conclusion that it is a die
1) you needed to trust your vision. If you were a subjectivist/mystic you would mistrust yourself or reality itself becuase the other people said they saw something else.

2) you needed to ask the others what they saw. you need to trust them. Nothing wrong in that provided you do not negate your own vision.

3) you needed the faculty of logic.

When you hear to what the other 5 persons have to say, you realise that the 6 views in question are in total contradiction with each other! But contradictions do not exist. At the same time we should not hate contradictions. They are just an opportunity to find out the truth. Saying that you saw 1 dot in a square is true. But then you are seeing only probably 1/6th of the truth. In real life cases realitiy might not be as simple as a 6 faced die. It might have many many different aspects, that is where every view counts.

A view/perspective/opinion (w.r.t me/I/myself) is subjective in nature, it can never be purely objective. In my example your view is subject to your planetary position. But, yes it is possible to make your view as objective as possible only when you consciously try to find out all aspects of the truth.


These were my posts in a community.

Pride, arrogance and humility.

It was a laidback wednesday morning. I had been drinking chai with my colleagues when it happened. My manager walked up and said "It will not do, that tool which you built is just not good enough. You have got to improve it! Everyone is cribbing. It is so much hard work for them."

Flashback :-
3 weeks back I got the idea and started working on this software tool which would solve our equipment crisis! Though in hindsight it seems to be a very simple idea, I assume that it was not that simple as no one got it till then. Its advantages are so much that it was just mind boggling that no one thought about it before. Before I get carried away - I cannot tell you the exact details of what the idea was or what the tool does, it is confidential. Anyway, so I got this tool done in 2-3 days flat. Surprisingly, it was as if I was on steroids, hardly slept, I was too excited. Though there were some glitches and caveats, the tool was working for 80% of the cases. But soon people were not satisfied. They started blaming me for not solving the problem completely! When I tried to explain the corner cases and have a discussion so as to come up with a better solution, I was given the cold shoulder. No one really understood what I was talking about! It was frustrating. But I put my foot down finally and said that this is how it is, take it or leave it. I will be able to improve it only when I think further, research a better solution or get another idea. Until one fine day my manager came and said "It will not do, that tool which you built is just not good enough. You have got to improve it! Everyone is cribbing. It is so much hard work for them."

Present :-
It struck me.. another idea, I almost spilt my tea on my manager. I just ran from there like a mad man. Must have said eureka too perhaps. By evening I had it ready. Can you beat that I thought! 2 ideas in 1 month for a problem which people had been slogging for years now! I was brimming with arrogance. In fact I just spent hours looking at what I had created. Almost Narcissism.

Yesterday I went to answer my test in IISc. The Prof. has asked me to submit my project proposal. I had a couple of ideas. I went to the IISc library to see if they can be implemented and how. There I see a shelf of books on the rutherford model. I remember how I promised myself that I would study this as a kid. I go ahead and come across the latest German journals on Networking. I remember how I promised myself I would learn German. Many more before I go ahead and start looking for what I wanted to in the IEEE journals. I find that not only my couple of ideas have been implemented already but are also being sold as products in the market! I have learnt my lesson in humility! What I have done makes me proud, but what I am capable of, and all that I am yet to do makes me humble. The IISc library does that to people, It is after all one of the largest in the world. http://www.library.iisc.ernet.in/aboutus/aboutus.html

A joke I found somewhere

HER DIARY
Day night, I thought he was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a cafe to have some coffee. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment. Conversation wasn't flowing so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk, he agreed but he kept quiet and absent. I asked him what was wrong - he said, "Nothing". I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said it had nothing to do with me and not to worry.

On the way home I told him that I loved him, he simply smiled and kept driving. I can't explain his behavior; I don't know why he didn't say, "I love u, too". When we got home I felt as if I had lost him, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore.
He just sat there and watched TV; He seemed distant and absent.Finally I decided to go to bed. About 10 minutes later he came to bed. I decided that I could not take it anymore, so I decided to confront him with the situation but he had fallen asleep. I started crying and cried until I too fell asleep. I don't know what to do. I'm almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster……………………..



HIS DIARY

Today India lost the cricket match against Bangladesh. DAMN IT. !!!!!!!!!

My objectives (in order of priority)

1. To do my work. To
the best of my ability. In my own eyes, it is my work that defines me
completely.
Mind you, I do not say that I should only do rocket science. Even if I am doing hard labour, I will do it with dignity.

2. To earn more money.
Who said money is nothing. Money is a very useful tool. Why not have as
much of it as possible?

3. To spend more money. What
happens to a tool when you don't use it? It rusts.

4. To enjoy the all the pleasures in life. He he... if you know what I mean.

Some interesting quotes :-

Tom Cronin: He's making his (Jason Bourne) first mistake.
Nicky: It's not a mistake. They don't make mistakes. They don't do random. There's always an objective. Always a target.
Pamela Landy: The objectives and targets always came from us. Who's giving them to him now?
Nicky: Scary version? He is.


If you think it is as simple as it seems to be.... try and understand this :-

"many commercial systems have provided fixed-priority scheduling for real-time tasks [Khanna et al. 92, Custer 92] in addition to round-robin scheduling for timesharing, often with the drawback of the possibility of starving timesharing tasks [Nieh et al. 93], while still providing no guarantees for real-time tasks unless they are executed at the highest priority."

God

According to the uncertainty principle of quantum physics, our senses, and hence our observations/perspectives/views are subjective in nature. "Note also that the product of the uncertainties, of order 10^−35 Joule-seconds, is so small that the uncertainty principle has negligible effect on objects of macroscopic scale, despite its importance for atoms and subatomic particles." (wikipedia)

Though the uncertainty is negligible it is an uncertainty.

On the other hand most physicists have said that this is nothing but a "measurement" and not an observation. A measurement which has to be defined in terms of quantum mechanics and not physics applicable to macroscopic objects.

Besides this I would also like to ask that since our senses are not 100% don't we depend on the "subjective" faculties of our mind to fill into the gaps? Example:- The vase which also looks like 2 faces, or the 3 dimensional cube mapped onto 2 dimensions.

The above, makes possible different perspectives of the same reality (probably the basis for libertarianism). This combined with the fact that there exists a reality independent of the mind gives some room for stuff like "God". And many many other entities and probably the whole concept of religion/spirits/ghosts etc.

When people ask me why I do not believe in God. I ask them to define God. Either there is no definition for God, or the definition given is ambiguous/a paradox at best. So I say by definition, God does not exist.

Consider the observation of certain physical phenomenon like the photo-electric effect and interference of light waves (alternating dark and bright strips occuring on a screen when light falls on it only through 2 slits). Something we learn in high school physics.

While blind faith would squarely attribute this to God. A vibrant mind gifted with reason would try to approach the problem mathematical. It would make assumptions to aid the process. Assumptions to modularise the problem. This is possible only through creative imagination, a romanticism if you will. The mind assumes the light to be a wave and them proceeds to mathematically to derive a "formula" for the phenomenon of interference. Similarly we assume that light travels in the form of packets (photons) and thus causes the photo-electric effect (release of electrons from a metal surface when light falls on it).

So though our senses and observations might not be 100% perfect. Our reasoning and creative mind combined with all the tools it has created should more than make up for that. Notice the irony here. Tt is our mind which has made God. The mind is hungry for an explanation. It is our choice as to whether we believe in blind faith or reason and find out.

Profession

I am a network engineer. I studied Engineering in Computer Science. I learnt programming as a kid. My favourite subjects were Mathematics and History. I love to apply logic and reason (that should be obvious). I love to gather information and read stories.

But my profession has led me to develop another skill. That of creativity and innovation. I also deal with some problems which might not have a known "correct solution" (such problems are called NP hard) or a solution which is guaranteed to complete in a given amount of time. But yet we go ahead and "solve" it using temporary solutions (engineering) and searching for the correct one all the time (research).

Ask yourself why :-

Ragnar Danneskjöld is a pirate, though he wants to study philosophy.
John Galt works as labourer on the rail road despite his obvious talent in making motors.
Howard Roark works as a miner even though he is the best architect around.
Hugh Akston flips burgers.

And what Ayn Rand wants to say when she says "Contradictions do not exist".

They do what they do because for them work is a means of livelihood and thus more important than working in their favourite field. They are willing to give up their passion for the sake of honesty and integrity in their profession whatever it is that they have to do. The world will not allow them to work with integrity in their favourite or chosen field so they simply give it up, but refuse to compramise on their fundamentals. Mind you even when they choose to do what they do it is still some of their skills and their able body that they use to do it.

That is what the Roarks and Galts in this world mostly end up doing. What I want to point out is that even if you are not in the profession you would like to be in what matters is how you earn your livelihood. And also that one should never give up on what he would prefer to do.. keep trying to get into the profession of your choice.

Objectivism is for the strong willed

Objectivism is for the strong willed
While Ayn Rand had very strong views, she was always rational. She was integral with her observations. She could give proper logical explanations leading from her observations to the stance she took, and from the stance to her actions. (Although this sounds simple it really is not). This led her to say that all those who did not agree with her must be irrational. The point is this : what happens when you see a point she misses. She might call you irrational, the whole world might call you irrational/wrong. But, what matters is that you know you are not.

I have 2 points to make here :-
1) Ayn Rand confesses that she was not a good psychologist. So when she made villians out of the irrational people, calling them evil, it induces a tendancy to conform to her views in the weak willed/unintelligent reader. And so Ayn Rand, unknowingly, ends up doing more harm than good for such people. Unfortunate.

2) It is imperative on rational individuals to hold their views/actions which are based on sound reasoning and observations as a line in stone. Unchanging, except when you see that your observations were inaccurate.

3) If you can prove that someone has been irrational or has malintent... then he/she deserves no respect.

We were taught economics in school

I was reading "The wealth of nations" by Adam Smith. And I realised that I seemed to understand what he was saying really well! It is strange how real life events teach you so much more than you can ever cram. I learnt economics when I was in class 5. And my younger brother learnt it in class 2. I think Funskool had set up shop in Goa recently. They were manufacturing their stuff from somewhere near Panjim. They came to our school (Sharda Mandir School) to promote their products. My bro and I were already huge fans of funskool toys (we had our own collection of G.I. Joe's at home), as were most of the other boys I guess... Don't know about the girls. At that age I hated them anyway ;-).

They gave each one of us some cool G.I.Joe book labels. Remember the kind of labels we used to put on our school books. Well these were no ordinary labels, they had cool G.I.Joe figures printed by the side. Like firefly, snowjob, cobra and gung-ho and gosh I dont even remember their names now :-(. Anyway we were all very excited to have this cool stuff... Two points to be noted here. Sharda Mandir School, a very strict school allowed funskool to distribute the labels. And secondly, funskool, knowingly or unknowingly I don't know, but I suspect that it was a marketing strategy - distributed unequal numbers of various kinds of labels.

So while everyone got like around 50 labels, some labels were quite rare. For example for every 10 firefly labels they gave out, they gave 2 snowjob labels, and maybe just one gung-ho label. Guess what happened in the days that followed. Everyone started collecting these labels. People started showing of their labels and trading them. Someone would have like the rarest of the rare cobra label!! He would be the envy of the whole school.

The labels were treated like currency notes. If a firefly label was worth 10 bucks, the snowjob labels were worth 50 bucks and the gung-ho a 100 bucks. The cobra would ofcourse be pure gold. Note that the "value" of the labels was more if it was rare. This basic funda in economics was known to kids who were still learning addition and substraction in class 1 and 2. Also note that the exchange was strictly barter. No real currency was involved. You give 10 firefly labels you get 1 gung-ho label. But surprise surprise.

The values began to change!! It was probably because some smart kids went and brought some more labels into the system from either the factory or shops. Suddenly
there was a flood of Gung-ho labels (100 bucks) and so its price fell drastically :-). Until one day it was almost equal to the firefly label! So although the guys who "innovated" by procuring labels from the factory itself made a huge initial profit, they had to innovate once again to make the same kind of money :-). One dude had a colour printer in his house ;-) ... hehehe no prizes for guessing what he did.


My collection was basically a joint account with my brother. He once gave away some precious labels to his "friend". He told me that his "friend" had taken them by force. I being the elder brother decided to take matters into my own hands. Went to the kid bro's friend and held him by the collar. Gave him a good trashing, and asked him to return the labels to my bro. Don't really remember if he did though. There were many more such fights happening all over the school. Finally the school administration got fed up and confiscated all the labels. Now everyone was sad.

Soon we got fed up of the damn labels and moved on to bigger things. Now I realise that I am actually stuck with the damn labels for the rest of my life. The only difference is that the new labels look much more boring than the funskool ones and the rare ones have the picture of a bespectacled bald man instead of cobra or gung-ho.

This post is boring!

Only boring people really use this word "boredom". It is a sign of a short attention span. It is somehow the lower standard of any activity they indulge in. As if it is the duty of others to entertain these people. People complaining about boredom are usually very lazy. Here is what wiki says about boredom :-

"Boredom is a condition characterized by perception of one's environment as dull, tedious, and lacking in stimulation. This can result from leisure and a lack of aesthetic interests"

It is an irony how boredom is actually the root of many different phylosophies and thoughts. In 1670, Blaise Pascal's unfinished notes were published under the title of Pensées (i.e., "Thoughts"). In the work, he described many fundamental themes of existentialism. Pascal argued that without a God, life would be meaningless and miserable. People would only be able to create obstacles and overcome them in an attempt to escape boredom. These token-victories would ultimately become meaningless, since people would eventually die. This was good enough reason not to choose to become an atheist, according to Pascal.

Boredom can make man move, take action, do things which seem meaningless to someone else. For example. Some people indulge in sex to drive away boredom. Software engineers in Bangalore who are bored with their daily lives in office decide to go on a "trek". They brave heavy rains, bad weather, leeches, roads which look like the moon's surface, all for a little bit of thrill. In fact just to get tired and feel the nature around them. My friend went on one such trek and was bit at almost a dozen places by leeches. DAMN, I WONDOR IF THE LEECH EVER GETS BORED OF DRINKING BLOOD?

The answer is that it does not, it drinks as much blood as possible.

Boredom at the subconcious level makes many decisions for us. In fact it is a driving force comparable to the ego itself.

I miss being a fisherman.

I miss being a fisherman.

Goan and laid back. Yeah it is not NP hard to catch fish. Or is it? well well well. The truth is that NP hard or NP soft, it does not really matter. Check your premises, what matters is :-
1) Does it make you happy?
2) Does it fill your stomach.

Thats it. Thats it thats it thats it. For your information I am typing under the influence of the best wine available in Goa. Vinicola. Coming back to the point...

We need to learn... excuse me, correction... "I" need to learn that I earn, to make myself happy and to fill my stomach. Thats it thats it thats it. Please, excuse my grammer. And so I say... I miss being a fisherman. Because I love fish. I love eating fish. And I love fish. thats it .. thats it thats it thats it. I can't believe I have to struggle to be simple! Now to those of you who demand reason. Is there any honour greater than satisfying your needs ? This thought occured to me on seeing the Greek coastline in the movie "The sisterhood of the traveling pants". No, do not laugh, I realised, that logically I should have been a fisherman. I should have given it a shot at least! And I must say that I miss being a fisherman. Yes. I miss doing something that feeds me directly. I miss the simplicity of life.


Hunt, catch, eat. Thats it, thats it thats it. Its as simple as that. And only when you understand this basic funda, can you try to understand NP hard problems and dream to solve them.


I miss being a fisherman.

My lifeline

This post consists of 2 parts. Above you see my lifeline, the value of Juniper Networks, the result of the efforts of my colleagues and myself. Below you see just an excerpt from a great masterpiece.

"So you think money is the root of all evil?"
'Atlas Shrugged' | 1957 | Ayn Rand



said Francisco d' Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the prinicple that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tommorow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor - your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on the moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?

Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by mean of nothing but physical motions - and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all goods produced and of all wealth that has ever existed on earth.

But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strenght do you mean? It is not the strenght of guns or muscle. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by a man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made - before it can be looted or mooched - made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money premits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss - the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery - that you must offer them values, not wounds - that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade - with reason, not force, as their final arbiter - it is the best product that wins, the best preformance, the man of best judgment and hightest ability - and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. The is the code of existance whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as a driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality - the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brain of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth - the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry the money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his weath is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that is should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you have pronounced upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribue to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickle, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money - and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know that are able to deserve it.

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another - their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich - will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt - and of his life, as he deserves.

Then you will see the rise of men of the double standard - the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money - the men who are hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law - men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims - the money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

Do you wish to know wether that day is comming? Watch the money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you seen that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of moral existance. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: 'Acount overdrawn.'

When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are

You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood: money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edges of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained that same: to seize wealth by force and keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves - slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, of aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers, as industrialists.

To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money - and I have no higher, more revernt tribute to pay America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there was no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being - the self-made man - the American industrialist.

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose -because it contains all the others - the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity - to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide - as, I think, he will.

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for you own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become tools of men. Blood, whips and guns - or dollars. Take your choice - there is no other - and your time is running out"