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Showing posts from June, 2010

Are Indians the most racist in the world?

In short, no I don't think so. We are the most diverse, yes, but no we aren't the most racist people in the world. I see this being thrown around quite a bit, and it hurts to see even educated people blatantly criticizing our own countrymen without thinking it through. This post is directed at addressing that question. I am going to support my point with five arguments. First, I believe what we mistake for racism (most of the time) is actually rivalry and some of the things that come with it. Second, the immensely diverse nature of our society and country is actually an asset which we confuse with xenophobia to call ourselves racists. Third, yes, there will always be some among us and others who will be intrinsically anti-social and absolutely racist - but you cannot disown them, as the " No true Scotsman " fallacy points out. And oh, lest I forget, some of us do behave in a manner that portrays a negative/uncultured image to the outside world about Indians. These p...

Sabotaging the railways

From the OSS Simple Sabotage Manual : Transportation: Railways (a) Passengers (1.) Make train travel as inconvenient as possible for enemy personnel. Make mistakes in issuing train tickets, leaving portions of the journey uncovered by the ticket book; issue two tickets for the same seat in the train, so that an interesting argument will result; near train time, instead of issuing printed tickets write them out slowly by hand, prolonging the process until the train is nearly ready to leave or has left the station. On station bulletin boards announcing train arrivals and departures, see that false and misleading information is given about trains bound for enemy destinations. (2) In trains bound for enemy destinations, attendants should make life as uncomfortable as possible for passengers. See that the food is especially bad, take up tickets after midnight, call all station stops very loudly during the night, handle baggage as noisily as possible during the night, and so on. (3) S...