The Innocent Can Never Last...

The vision that LeadIIT is

2011-11-15T05:29:00.000-08:00

Why is LEADIIT helping IIT aspirants?

Dear Future IITian

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3 certainties in life: death, taxes and a 20% carry

2009-08-28T22:45:00.000-07:00

Though it is in the 2nd quarter of my life that I began appreciating the role of capital in everything worth your time, I enjoyed the learning from Day 1. Capital is a great truth actually!
I came cross this interesting piece, a must-know on PE.

From The Private Equiteer,

The 2/20 rule simply refers to a 2% management fee and a 20% outperformance fee. That is, investors typically pay 2% of committed capital to the management company to manage the fund and 20% of returned funds above the initial capital as an incentive.

I mentioned committed capital, because in most private equity funds, investors commit capital rather than invest capital. Their capital is called as required by new investments. So in practice, a firm may not invest a single dollar for two years, but based on committed capital of say $1b, $20m a year is paid as management fees to… sift through opportunities. This is one of the many beauties of the private equity model (for private equity firms at least).

I once heard a prominent partner of a large New York private equity firm say, “There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and a 20% carry.” Of course the monetary value of the carry isn’t a certainty, but what he was inferring is that the private equity industry will stick by its 20% carry rule irrespective of what anyone else thinks because it is their livelihood.

Read in full

Thinking with Presence: Strategy Insights

2009-08-24T05:58:00.000-07:00

As always happens, strategy helps or helps to lose. Strategy for a new player almost always means innovation. Otherwise it hardly even pays to strategize. Gladwell cites Vivek Ranadive in a real life case...My favorite piece on Strategy.

Ranadivé was puzzled by the way Americans played basketball. He is from Mumbai. He grew up with cricket and soccer. He would never forget the first time he saw a basketball game. He thought it was mindless. Team A would score and then immediately retreat to its own end of the court. Team B would inbound the ball and dribble it into Team A's end, where Team A was patiently waiting. Then the process would reverse itself. A basketball court was ninety-four feet long. But most of the time a team defended only about twenty-four feet of that, conceding the other seventy feet. Occasionally, teams would play a full-court press—that is, they would contest their opponent's attempt to advance the ball up the court. But they would do it for only a few minutes at a time. It was as if there were a kind of conspiracy in the basketball world about the way the game ought to be played, and Ranadivé thought that that conspiracy had the effect of widening the gap between good teams and weak teams. Good teams, after all, had players who were tall and could dribble and shoot well; they could crisply execute their carefully prepared plays in their opponent's end. Why, then, did weak teams play in a way that made it easy for good teams to do the very things that made them so good?

See full from the source here

Power Prediction on Our Future: Tim O’Reilly in Web Squared

2009-08-24T05:44:00.000-07:00

I bet you would lose your sense of reality if you read this in full for 5 minutes...I pick an excerpt to motivate you to read full on:

Many who talk about "the Internet of Things" assume that what will get us there is the combination of ultra-cheap RFID and IP addresses for everyday objects. The assumption is that every object must have a unique identifier for the "Internet of Things" to work.

What the Web 2.0 sensibility tells us is that we’ll get to the Internet of Things via a hodgepodge of sensor data contributing, bottom-up, to machine-learning applications that gradually make more and more sense of the data that is handed to them. A bottle of wine on your supermarket shelf (or any other object) needn’t have an RFID tag to join the "Internet of Things," it simply needs you to take a picture of its label. Your mobile phone, image recognition, search, and the sentient web will do the rest. We don’t have to wait until each item in the supermarket has a unique machine-readable ID. Instead, we can make do with bar codes, tags on photos, and other "hacks" that are simply ways of brute-forcing identity out of reality.

There’s a fascinating fact noted by Jeff Jonas in his work on identity resolution. Jonas’ work included building a database of known US persons from various sources. His database grew to about 630 million "identities" before the system had enough information to identify all the variations. But at a certain point, his database began to learn, and then to shrink. Each new load of data made the database smaller, not bigger. 630 million plus 30 million became 600 million, as the subtle calculus of recognition by "context accumulation" worked its magic.

Read it here: http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/public/schedule/detail/10194

George Carlin Rocks and I pick quotes well

2009-08-22T03:06:00.000-07:00

If you have not shocked yourself through some kind of intellectual excitement for sometime, George Carlin's there to help you.

Of course my role is to pick his best for you.

# If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

# No one knows what’s next, but everybody does it.

# By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

# The only good thing ever to come out of religion was the music.

# Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

# Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.

# If a man smiles all the time, he’s probably selling something that doesn’t work.

# Most of the time people feel okay. Probably it’s because at the moment they’re not actually dying.

# So far, this is the oldest I’ve been.

# I think I am, therefore, I am. I think.

# Life is a zero sum game.

# I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it.

I hope you had a good laugh! I had - I published after 2 years.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

2007-11-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered what is the best judgement passed on a piece of writing? Not what's the best judgement but what's the best judge of any writing.

It is quite simple as I understand.

1. Writings, if accessible, attract people.
2. People are of three types: Good, Bad and Ugly.
3. Writings type attract same people type.
4. People can be judged.

India at the Crossroads: A Perspective

2006-06-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

Today India stands at the crossroads in its developmental pathway. The reasons for making such an assertion are not too far to seek. The centralized planning model we adopted at the start of the developmental timeline delivered on some counts and miserably failed on some others-crucial ones being balanced regional development, export led growth, employment generation, utilizing private sector efficiency and poverty eradication. The economic turmoil that climaxed at the start of the nineties forced a strategic rethink on the policy makers. And India witnessed a watershed era through the ushering in of Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization, popularly known as the LPG, regime. The stabilization and structural adjustment program since then has been assessed to have made a positive impact on the Indian economy. But the first generation reforms undertaken were crisis driven and today it is high time that the country planners deliberate and form a policy aiming for the second generation reforms. This will not only unlock the underlying potential of the economy but will also address the important objective of all economic policy; namely social equity and justice- a front on which unarguably the progress has been slow and less than satisfactory. The mid term review of the tenth plan has noted with alarm and alacrity that we are lagging behind critical human development goals.

The next five years are going to be the watershed years in this very context. The Indian success story has so far seen markets booming, sensex soaring and software exports zooming high and in five years’ time we will have another feather in our cap through the accomplishment of Commonwealth 2010 games. But at the same time the seriousness of the issues like farmers’ suicide, rural-urban divide, and malnourished children forces us to think about the other end of the spectrum too. The implications of such a skewed growth pattern are disastrous for the nation. There is an urgent need for a comprehensive policy to meet the challenges facing rural India in the fields of agriculture, infrastructure, health and education. The same stands equally true for the urban sectors of the economy with some suitable modification on the focus areas.

The key to unlocking the Indian growth potential lies in a sustainable use of its vast human resource and technical expertise. The need of the hour is to replicate the Indian success story in all the fields that have been as yet left untouched. The information and biotechnology revolutions we have witnessed are of immediate need in most other sectors today. The time is ripe to leverage the position of advantage India today has in the global markets to serve the pressing needs of an average citizen of the country. Only then will we be able to lift ourselves up from the sandwiched position we have today in the world as observed by United Nations Development Program in its Human Development Report-2005. The very fact that India is sandwiched between Sao Tome and Principe and Solomon Islands in the report would be a powerful motivator to aim for such a change for most Indians I believe.

Questions and No Answers...

2006-06-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

Choiceless awareness -- is it a possibility?

IT BETTER BE. OR A LOT IN LIFE WILL BE BIOCHEMICALLY/GENETICALLY DICTATED.FREE WILL ARISES ONLY AFTER CHOICELESS AWARENESS. WITHOUT IT FREE WILL IS A MERE EMPTY CLAIM BY A SLAVE OF THE THOUGHT.

Choiceless does it means there is no thought present in the context of making choice?

I WILL TELL U WHAT I HAVE FOUND IN 7 YEARS. CHOICELESS PERHAPS IMPLIES OBSERVATION WITHOUT IDENTIFICATION. WHICH MEANS SEEING EVERY THOUGHT PASSING THE MIND WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT ANY OTHER THOUGHT. NO SECONDARY THOUGHT IS THOUGHT OF AS WE OBSERVE ONE THOUGHT. AS AN UNDENAIBLE FACT AS I OBSERVE A SINGLE THOUGHT ANOTHER ONE ARISES GIVEN THE ANALOGICAL PROPERTY OF HUMAN MIND. BUT KRISHNAMURTI STEPS IN HERE. THE KEY LIES IN NOT LETTING GO THE MEDITATIVE STATE AND INSTEAD ATTEND TO THE THOUGHT THAT JUST AROSE. IN THIS WAY NO OTHER THOUGHT REIGNS SUPREME WHICH MEANS THAT ALL RISING THOUGHTS ARE SEEN AS THEY RISE .ANALOGICALLY OR OTHERWISE. THIS PROCESS IS CHOICELESS COZ NO THOUGHT IS CHOSEN OVER THE OTHER. BEING CHOICELESSLY AWARE OF EACH AND EVERY THOUGHT.

Our bases of all thoughts are choices(i can elaborate on this context )

THOUGHTS GIVE US CHOICES. I AGREE TILL HERE. WHAT U SAY I M NOT ABLE TO APPRECIATE. I NEED UR VIEWPOINT IN MORE DETAIL.

Is awareness different from conciousness(i want to have a collection of opinions on this topic to refine our search).

THAT IS MORE OF A THEORETICAL APPROACH. IF WE R AWARE OF OUR EXISTENCE EVERY MOMENT THE CONSCIOUNESS AND AWARENESS ARE PRACTICALLY IDENTICAL. THEORETCALLY WHEN DEATH COMES BOTH MUST END. I DONT KNOW MORE TO ELABORATE. THOUGH QUESTION INDEED.

When no thought is present how can we even make an observation? for that even some thought has to be present.

OBSERVATION WITHOUT THOUGHT IS POSSIBLE. MOST OF THE TIMES WE OBSERVE THINGS A PARALLEL THOUGHT-CHATTER IS GOING IN OUR MINDS. K SAYS TO BE AWARE OF THIS ENDLESS CHATTER. WHEN THIS HAPPENS THE CHATTER ENDS AND MIND SEES THINGS WITHOUT ANY PREJUDICE OR BIAS TO LOOK IN A CERTAIN WAY. REMEMBER MADONNA SINGING "U ONLY C WHAT UR EYES WANT TO SEE" SHE GOT IT RITE THERE!!!

About thoughts i would like to ask is there any thought of your own(0riginal or creational)
DIFFICULT TO SAY BUT THERE A MORE CHANCES THAT THERE ISN'T. WHATEVER MITE SEEMS TO BE MINE IS A ILLUSION AT BEST. THE THOUGHT IS UNORIGIANAL SINCE IT IS JUST A REARRANGEMENT OF THINGS KNOWN ALREADY TO THE MIND. A "NEW" THOUGHT IS IMPOSSIBLE COZ HOW WILL THE MIND RECOGNIZE IT AS NEW...MIND CN RECOGNISE ONLY A THING OR THOUGHT WHOSE ELEMENTS ARE ALL KNOWN TO IT ALREADY.

or is there anything called mind (have we ever proved that mind exists which is the base of creation of thought )

MIND IS CALLING ITSELF THE MIND. ITS AN ABSTRACTIO OF THE HIGHEST DEGREE....THE MIND GIVING A NAME TO ITSELF. IMPOSSBLE WITH MACHINES TODAY. THE SPLIT IS INHERENT TO HUMAN MIND. REMEMBER "THE OBSERVER IS THE OBSERVED" ITS OF THAT SORT I THINK.

Thought of Fear we can corelate to our genes if it was not present peoples will be jumping into fire doing all kind of stuff leading to extinction. One argument i can have in favour of creation of thought is the very first thought itself .. how did it form? Have we ever thought of anthing beyond our perception of 5 senses(i do not negate the sixth sence als

THOUGHT PROBABLY ORIGINATED IN THE MIND TO SERVE ITS SINGLE MOST IMP PURPOSE: U SAID IT ABSOLUTEL RITE. SURVIVAL. WE R DISCUSSING HOW GREAT THE ROLE DOES THOUGHT HAVE BEYOND SURVIVAL. LIKE A DOG WHICH WAS DOMESTICATED FOR MASTER'S PROTECTION SUDDENLY TURNS BACK TO BITE ITS MASTER. THAT IS THE SCENARIO WITH THOUGHT. THE DOG IS OUR THOUGHT HERE ANALOGY WISE.

"Thought Unravelled" on Orkut

2006-06-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

Even though I joined orkut late, it was pretty quick and comfortable finding and adding a lot of friends. But one fall out of arriving late was obvious almost simultaneously.

Almost all defining characteristics of mine (the usually brought forth ones) had already found way as one or the other "communities" on orkut. This felt not like being born with a silver spoon scenario!! It could have been, had the ego (self knowledge?)not raised its voice against this autocracy. Trying to fit myself in predefined moulds. In fact probably this is what is happening to me in real life. But frankly, I have fallen prey to it in the real life. But an online friend community is altogether a different ball game and thus I found the concern raised justified. How can I define myself in terms of ideas ppl have already had. Atleast not on orkut.

Pondering over what's left-that one thing which defines me yet has more or less been antenatal atbest- I had to come to what I finally did come to!! My most defining charateristic I would say. The abstract self & the choiceless self.

Since this essentially is based on "thought" (not as used in "Marxian Thought" etc)
Marxian Thought and other ideologies are actually forms of forced and frozen thought. They have a limited role at the level of an individual. They have already played havoc at the collective level. What an individual must be concerned with is his fleeting and transient thought. It is not that the ideology he believes in is not thought. It is of course thought but it is frozen and imitated. In fleeting thought the real meaning of the self is visible automatically. Like a thresher separates that the husk from the whole grain, the man has to be choicelessly aware of his fleeting thoughts to be able to know its real nature.

In lies his being; both he recognizes as the "him" and the "not him".

------Excerpt below--------------------
Orkut Community: "Thought Unravelled"

Listed under my Orkut profile.

"For the initiated and the uninitiated alike.

For all and all those who believe we could be a thought more thoughtful about our lives.

For the skeptical ones Quantum physicist David Bohm among many others once confessed the importance of thoughts to humankind:

"Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives false info that you are running it, that you are the one who controls thought. Whereas actually thought is the one which controls each one of us..."

Bon Voyage!!! "

What's Your Skill?

2006-03-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

I fondly remember a professor of mine, at the college I attended, who somehow always managed a lot of stud(ent)s lining up to do almost any course he announced he wud be teaching. Suavity, articulation n "soft" skills were his special specialities besides a Ph. D. from some renowned institute (though not the same as he was teaching us at!) His gestures, which to me seemed to have been learnt after a prolonged practice, were something that further bestowed a leading position to him among his fellow racers in the academic circlular tracks.

And yeah not to forget his laptop carrycase (n please don't think that I still think it's called a labtop...it was never my mistake anyway as I happened to see it for the first time in my chemistry lab ..n those were the times when it was not the computing power I identified it with, but as the only thing in that foul smelling lab that probably wud have smelt gud lest the research-ass(istant) let me go near it enuf....) which to me seemed not heavy enuf to qualify for an actual machine inside it..thanks to another professor who taught me force n dynamics.

So as it was destined I had to wait long to see what actually he brought to the class in that laptop carrycase. And one sleepy (for me; with benefit of doubt, emanating from my respect, for the professor) morning at 8 AM both of us happened to enter the same lecture theatre at the opportune moment. Opportune becoz of the benefit of retrospect that I have today. I held my breath as the wrist watch I wore surreptitiously n hence silently registered 8:15 once again but this time coinciding with the first time view of the contents of the bag.

As shud happpen anyways, good things will be cited first here...I got a demonstrable confirmation of my long cherished belief of the case not housing a labtop. OOPS...laptop..And that very instant I knew that the other professor I have talked about deserved far (I mean from a distance) more respect for having taught me such gud force n dynamics...even application part he must have covered well with us...otherwise how cud I just stand my ground against this highly probable case of a professor in his 30s not carrying a laptop in his carrycase..I knew then n there I had the knack n insight of the unfathomable ! n it's been confirmed many times since then with other such professors in their respective 30s.

And the bad part is that the bad part must also be cited, even if in the latter half. After all how can I forget the professor putting his right hand right inside the carrycase right away and only after a thorough rummaging through the contents inside (I told u earlier it was not a laptob...oh my god...laptop I mean) did he declare with a piece of paper in his right hand, " This one is for Capitalism " ,and since I knew I had not enrolled into a college which by any standards would qualify as one with socialist or leftist leanings, he continued apace, to count for us one after the other, benefits of capitalism to a "hard-working n self-made" society (did he cite India as a worthy enough society?)

One argument that grabbed my attention on that sleepy morning, culling my reverie-in-lectures state intravenously, n making me write the above 500 words text as a prologue merits mention here finally. "A capitalist society does not work towards the exclusion of masses.But instead creates the right opportunities for all to flourish. The only thing required of the inhabitants is to discover their one skill which will make them unique among the masses n consequently qualify to be the citizens of the capitalist empire."

The Darwinian Epiphany Contd....

2006-03-07T12:40:00.000-08:00

Apropos the last post here's the concluding one. And yes... this one might bring to light the intended behind the title "The Darwinian Epiphany." Bon Voyage...

Such a chat a few weeks ago threw something of the sort i have talked about...really novel....recognized but never acknowledged earlier by my mind. The point was very moot- reiterated by almost the entire spectrum of thinkers n non-thinkers! It being a host of cliches handed down to us from times immemorial.

For instance:
"Honesty is the best policy" "Love thy neighbour" "Be good to others" "Be kind" "Dont ever lie" "There is no religion higher than Truth"

You would have got the complete idea of what i mean....the "good " part of life as we know it- rationally or otherwise.

Now you mite b finding ur little voice say 'What the hell a chat gotta to do with this?' And my little voice says:' Uhh... a lot as it turned out to be...' With a fellow-blogger this "good part of life" was brought under clinical examination that night. The "rationality", if any, underlying all these much heard statements being our (his?) objective.

As is usually the case with self-proclaimed rationalists, (like us?) we started out with the Darwinian gift to mankind (n all less equal living creatures of course) "Survival of the fittest". But soon realising to my utter consternation that almost all the "good" bends down on its knees n begs before Darwin, if not God himself, to change his findings aboard The Beagle. Because it just doesn't support the "good of life" with any stretch of imagination.

But the chat ended with a smile on my face....coz we did strike the rational tune after all...all praise for which must go to Chaitanya (my fellow-blogger..for the uninitiate).The "good" suddenly starts to stand on a solid footing even in wake of the survivability issue raised by Darwin....In fact it is this very principal which brings biological n
philosophical perspectives of life together like never before.

Issues needing elaboration....

First things first: We maintain that "Survival holds the key to uncover the rational reason behind these 'good' cliches." i.e. if somethings aids survival it is 'good'.

Second: "Survival" not only includes the biochemical aspects of a living being but also "sustainability" of such a living entity. That is "the chances of the life form retaining its place in the life-chain in times to come."

Further, it is to say that a single individual (Bush?) may be fit enough to destroy rest of the population but he will have to be eliminated from the "fittest" category becoz of the simple reason that such a survival is not sustainable for the population. Remember that the definition of "fit" pertains to an entity sharing its environment with others n is hardly
defined in isolation.

Take A Relook...

So it's time we relook at the cliches once again.

"Honesty is the best policy"...Coz Lying means transfering wrong information about some aspect of one's environment which for any ensemble wud decrease the chances of it adjusting to the dynamic environment...whose dynamism was the information precisely contained in the data packet. Low information about such an environment implies low fitness wrt it n hence low survivability.

This means the statement above aids survival of a group more often than not provided the settings are not too artificial, made solely for disproving the theory.

Others follow suit..................

A Darwinian Epiphany

2006-03-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

Chats which may be informal but still manage to remain within the confines of sincerity often reveal their covert potential in facilitating sudden insights. An "Insight" being some form of thought recognized yet acknowledged for the first time (by whom?....the mind itself, provisionally) (If u prefer to disagree, u wud be greatly enlightened by a comprehensive theory, new, on the mind n its role in our lives....click on "shivam " under "Bleeding Bloggers" on the right side of this page)

But why just insights, for me these chats have been a perennial source of cyclical highs in life. The instant feel of every bit suddenly coalescing to form a coherent me. And one subsequent thought, visible just beneath the exosphere of my consciousness, decidedly attributing the coherence to my inherent tendency to act good. "Thank God i realise now how correct i have been so far all my life !"

I have often emerged out of such chats with ever improving ratings to myself.

And just in the rarest of the rare cases such an improvement is obstructed by the "perceived impunity" of fellow chatters i most often brand the chat either as too informal or insincere-thus doing away with any counter-insights had in the course of such a discussion...

....I have more to say on it in my next blog

The Unsaid Revisited

2006-02-26T14:17:00.000-08:00

All my interactions with fellows fall under 3 classes: The Said, The Unsaid, The Confessed.

Shud be so for most of u too!

The Said, if in a clear-hearted person, beautifully eliminates the other two. The middle option only being retained for if-truth-is-too-painful kinds. The Confessed almost always merges, for such a woman, with The Said, thus eliminating the usual time lag between the two.

The Said also becomes the basic tool for motivators, politicians, crooks, gurus, Bushs, n speakers in general.

Though the initial hitch makes us think that The Said occupies the largest portion of the cosmos of our verbal consciouness, a moment's introspection reveals The Unsaid doing the rounds instead.

This comes out to be a disturbing find. Coz The Unsaid is not immobile n static. On the contrary, it is the one gulping most of ur consciousness resources, leaving very little to explore the dynamic world with. The Unsaid is restless, it never sleeps. Those who remember dreaming in their sleep wud be testimony to that. n Wake-up time being no exception.

The Unsaid is like cockroach surviving a nuclear holocaust. Nothing kills it perhaps. So have i found atleast. It leaves one with very little room in relationships. Coz The Unsaid is bothering one all the time. The Said, as it must occur in human relationship, only serves to mask it, momentarily divert our attention from the nagging of The Unsaid-which continues unabated.

One Unsaid finds its way out here: Long ago my pals started to tell me in my face, in the wake of my Utopian suggestions in almost all contemporary discussions we had, that i only had questions, no answers.

But today i think i have found my first such answer. The problem being the things i have pointed out above.

The Confessed comes to my rescue in dealing with The Unsaid. The time lag, guilt, u-cheated-me-so-far replies, fear of rejection notwithstanding.....

In The Land Of The Buddha

2006-02-24T13:49:00.000-08:00

In The Land Of The Buddha

Though I have stopped believing in Astrology/Palmistry (which i used to practise once! ) for a long time now, yet i find one such profecy true for me...classified as an aquarian according to my birthdate i m supposed to be at peace near large waterbodies...which happens to be very true ....the photo above will serve as a proof.....i infact tried my hand at rowing the boat too...

But this being the great Ganges, i cant stop concluding that the profecy stands true not becoz of planetary positions one is born in, but due to the utter divinity that nature manifests in all its elements engulfing us spontaneously...n water being just one of them.

A Secular Alternative To Social Harmony...

2006-02-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday i visited a forum. It was organised by Landmark Education India. Landmark Forum is an educational instructor, apparently the world's largest, outside the formal education arena like schools n Univs. What they focus in their 3-day course is "what does it take to have an extraordinary life every single day?" They differ from the standard educational format in claiming that "knowing the characteristics of a happy person wont help much in becoming one urself." And their effort at achieving these lies in restructuring relationship of woman/man with woman/man. Well what exactly they do to bring about this change in living is outside my knowledge coz i have decided not to join the 3-day course.

But lemme come back to the title once again. What made me use such a title is the proliferation of televangelism in the country, among other similar things. All sorts of religious instructors we see in ever growing numbers on the TV today. I belive the western countries (n fundamentalist regimes) world over have had such media led spirituality for some time now. While on the face of it all such groups claim to be teaching the basic tenets of a righteous human conduct like brother(sister) hood, love thy neighbour, forgiveness, restraint etc, apparently they have led to more division. So while the original message of basic goodness gets lost in this war like promotion of a particular ideology, the negatives like mutual hatred, verbal censure, social disharmony do result from such self-ensclosed endeavours. Infact this has been the fate of every organised effort to propagate any ideology.

Now the good point. Understanding that all the ideologies presumably want to do good to man in general n not create hurdles instead in the way of social harmony, shudnt we stop our old attempts at religious propagation n move to the above mentioned (n the like !) methods which have the potential to achieve the objectives without creating the opposite effects. Wont a secular, hierarchy-less platform help us attain our long cherished goals in a more efficient manner without leading to crimes against humanity.