Khabar Lahariya
In the remote villages of North India, a group of brave women is sparking a revolution, fighting against injustice and representing a voice for the marginalized with pens in their hands. Khabar Lahariya is India’s only newspaper run by Dalit (lowest caste) women.
Dalits, often known as “untouchables,” represent the lowest position within the traditional Indian caste system. The Indian caste system no longer exists under the law, but it is still deeply rooted in people’s minds and interwoven into the culture. Dalits face grapple with numerous adversities such as housing segregation and job discrimination.
Meera is one of the reporters at Khabar Lahariya. Born into a marginalized caste as a Dalit, she has faced many challenges. On top of the enormous disadvantages that Dalits face, as a Dalit woman, she has had the extra burden. For example, in rural areas, it is still common to get married as a teenager and to stay home as a housewife. This notion is not only harmful for their career but also for their education because their parents think that they don’t need education as a housewife.
Meera’s colleagues said that she feels like a burden on her parents. And once she is married, she feels like she is enslaved by her husband. She is expected to marry a man of her caste, not of her choice.
Despite all the challenges and life-threatening risks (India is one of the deadliest countries for journalists), Meera and her colleagues have been fearlessly reporting some ugly truths in India.
The film, Writing With Fire, illustrates the struggles and triumphs of Khabar Lahariya and its women journalists.
Illegal mining, for example, is one of the issues featured in their newspaper. It is a significant problem in India, leading to labor exploitation, child labor, and even death due to dangerous working conditions and inadequate wages. As they investigated the issue, they discovered that the police had not taken any action because they had connections with the mafia, who were running the mine. The mafia threatened them when they wrote stories about illegal mining, but they didn’t stop, bringing attention to the issue on a national level.
Beyond illegal mining, Khabar Lahariya addresses issues such as caste discrimination/violence, rape, police corruption, gender inequality, and child labor.
Their reports have had a real-life impact. Roads have been maintained, canals have been fixed, doctors and medicines have been sent, and rapists have been arrested and prosecuted.
In my opinion, a great documentary sheds light on seemingly ordinary people doing extraordinary things. These courageous female reporters deserve attention and praise as true journalists.
If Everything Seems Under Control, You’re Not Going Fast Enough
“If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.”
Mario Andretti
Ride the fine edge between being in and out of control. Keep pushing the limit and grow by going fast enough. Don’t try to be in too much control of yourself and the situation.
Many of us are slow because our standards are low. Raise the speed bar. Keep thinking about how to increase your speed by 10x.
Straw Man
The straw man fallacy is a technique that distorts arguments, making them more vulnerable to attack. Instead of addressing the opponent’s actual points, it involves presenting an exaggerated and weaker version of their argument. By doing so, it allows individuals to avoid engaging with the genuine argument and gives the impression of winning the debate.
When you’re unsure of your position, it’s common to lose arguments to a straw man.
Mr.Charlie’s
One of my favorite restaurants in San Francisco is Mr.Charlie’s. They are like a knockoff McDonald’s but serves entirely plant-based food. While it’s not recommended to eat there every day for a balanced diet, their food is delicious. I also love how they troll McDonald’s by using red and yellow in their design and offering menu items like ‘Not a Hamburger’ and ‘Not Chicken Nuggets’. The funniest part is that they opened their shop across the street from a McDonald’s in downtown San Francisco. However, the founder, Taylor McKinnon, doesn’t seem to know what McDonald’s is. lol
The founder, who was once homeless, says they want “to bring approachable plant-based food, fun, and support to communities.” Mr. Charlie’s donates nearly all of its revenue after expenses to local charities. They also hire people who are losing opportunities in a broken system.
i’m lovin’ It!
Learn With Stories
I find it effective to learn something new through stories. Stories are not only enjoyable but also easier to understand, especially when it comes to complex subjects like math and science. By teaching these subjects from a historical perspective, rather than just focusing on their functional aspects, they become more accessible. Stories also stick well in our memory because they bring information to life.
Story-based learning is particularly effective for understanding difficult concepts. I love reading the history of a hard concept because complex subjects often begin with simplicity. For example, “The Code Book” by Simon Singh illustrates the origins of cryptography as a basic method of sharing secrets, using techniques like letter shifting to encrypt messages.
Starting with the origin of a concept also helps us to gradually understand it. We can learn the logical progression and purpose behind each step, which greatly enhances our understanding. For instance, “The Code Book” taught me how encryption evolved from symmetric to asymmetric in response to the risk of key leaks during transfer.
If there is something you want to learn, but you find it overwhelming, you might want to start with stories. :)
Here are some examples of subjects I learned through stories(books and documentaries):
- Cryptography(The Code Book)
- The Blockchain(Digital Gold)
- The Internet(Who Controls the Internet?)
- Capitalism(The Corporation)
- Media control(Manufacturing Consent)
- Hacking(The Art of Invisibility
- Hacktivism(The Internet’s Own Boy)
- Information theory(A Mind at Play
- Education system(The One World School House)
- Civil-rights movement(The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.)
- Pickup(The Game)
- Poker(The Biggest Bluff
- Design(Helvetica)
- Money(Money: The Unauthorized Biography
- Justice(A People’s History of the United States)
- Human evolution(Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
- PR(The Century of the Self)
- Veganism(Cowspiracy
- Math(Fermat’s Enigma)
- The Financial Crisis(The Big Short)
and more…
Relative Thinking
We naturally compare things. The circles in the center are the same size, but they appear different because we compare them to the surrounding circles.
You may think it’s just an optical illusion, but Dan Ariely conducted an interesting experiment and discovered that people act irrationally because of this phenomenon:
“When contemplating the purchase of a $25 pen, the majority of subjects would drive to another store 15 minutes away to save $7. When contemplating the purchase of a $455 suit, the majority of subjects would not drive to another store 15 minutes away to save $7. The amount saved and time involved are the same, but people make very different choices.”
People think in percentages. The subjects were willing to travel to save 28% (7/25), but not willing to travel to save 1% (7/455), even if the cost savings are the same.
Charlie Munger refers to this tendency as “contrast-misreaction” and discusses how this bias can impair clear thinking and have detrimental effects on people’s lives:
“Small-scale damages involve instances such as man’s buying an overpriced $1,000 leather dashboard merely because the price is so low compared to his concurrent purchase of a $65,000 car. Large- scale damages often ruin “lives, as when a wonderful woman having terrible parents marries a man who would be judged satisfactory only in comparison to her parents. Or as when a man takes wife number two who would be appraised as all right only in comparison to wife number one.” Charlie Munger, Harvard University, 1995