This, that and uncertainty

Quick recap of recent events.

1. On 26th Jan, we launched ThinkUID - a website dedicated to spreading awareness on the Aadhaar (UID) project.
   It is not a company / trust / society or any such thing. Just a web site. An initiative by four of us friends - Raj Mashruwala, Raju Rajagopal, Tushar Vashisht and I. As a first step, we sent emails to our friends and are seeing good initial response. Please send us your good wishes.
   If you haven't already, please register your support (on the site or on facebook or twitter).
   It won't take much effort, I promise.
2. Yesterday (27th Jan), a compromise between UID and NPR was announced by the cabinet. Seeing the initial reports, I am happy that we made some progress. A brief summary of this is in our news report.
   Some are are asking for an even better solution, but I think this is no small progress in itself.

Flip page. 

Role of uncertainty in our lives.

We may not admit it, but we abhor uncertainty. We go to any lengths to remove doubts from our thoughts. Scratch that. We actually take the shortest path to certainty (avoid any hard work) - willingly embracing illogic on the way. Innovate rationalizations. Fiercely argue with external opposition and mercilessly put down small voices in our minds.

We come to conclusions based on skimming of news reports. The good general is bad. Or not. 

Either way, each of us have our certainty that exists almost harmoniously with the next person's opposite certainty.

We listen to experts of our choice and happily accept their pronouncements. Even if we labelled them experts based on one utterance somewhere because they sound so.... convincing? Aadhaar data can be stolen by foreign agents. Or not.

We even believe our politicians. FDI is good for our farmers. Or not.

We take known information and extend the logic into the unknown. Pakistan is certainly behind this event or that. Wait, there is no "Or not" here. We love this certainty. It is easy to hate someone whose face you haven't ever seen.

We absolutely must know how we came into being and how the universe works. So we embrace god. Not enough. Our god is the original / most powerful / one-and-only / most tolerant. All others, not so much.

With that last para, I probably shot myself in my foot. Or not.