Technolgy to make Cows out of Cars !

Cars are going to be like Cows -  everyone gets milk, no one owns a cow! 

We all need/ use milk daily with out owning the cow; that is likely to be fate of cars in the neat future ! 

Every one, more and more of world population , will need transportation and that too personalised - that will be available , in fact it is already there. If that personalised service is going to be more convenient and cheaper than owning an equipment ( read cars) then people will naturally opt for it. 

That is what exactly all the App based players like Uber/ Ola etc have done making use of the rapid progress of technology. 'Access and Convenience'   are the key operating  words for the future and that is what the younger generation is getting hooked onto. 

This is already happening in many areas, books, movies etc. going forward this is likely to spread to all assets which undergo Depreciation and faster changes -  like cars and  slowly into housing  etc for economic reasons. The way regulations and tax rules etc are structured will augment this shift further to service providers. The challenges of parking and maintenance are other factors driving this shift.  

The real surprise is that the service providers - say Uber - don't own any cars. The idea  and technology are getting merged -  a different version of 'crowd sourcing' as we see happening with Wikipedia etc ( which 15 year old has heard about Encyclopaedia Brittanica? ) The pace and scalability of technological advance is something the brick and mortar world is  finding difficult to match up to..... That is what we see with opposition to an application like Uber across the world. 

Therefore, the first causality of the emerging trend is likely to be  the second/ third car in the family. But the status symbol associated with cars is unlikely to go away any time soon; in fact that may get augmented further. So, people will own cars as  as they own a very high end camera or music system, more as 'trophies' rather than a basic transportation  equipment. 'The Car' may move from Parking lot to Living room over a period of time .......

This kind of a shift will have far reaching implications to the way the auto Industry is structured across the world. The design, features,  advertising, selling process including financing will all change or need to change . The only relief is that it may take 6/8 years .... But the direction is clear. 

9-11 --> Two Propositions and a Tragedy !

9 - 11 --> Two propositions and a Tragedy ! 

                          Its  Sept 11 and this day is more commonly called 9-11! Most of us know 9- 11 for the tragic events that happened at NY in 2001. We need not discuss that anymore - lets remember the victims  and pray for the families who are yet to recover from the shock of that eventful day. 

                            But, why is that we have to remember 9-11 with such  hurt, shame and helplessness? That is because we conveniently failed to understand and live up the calls made on this day , decades earlier,  by  two great Indians ! Had their  advices were heeded to, we would not have been so gloomy on this 9-11. 

1. Swami Vivekananda - 9-11-1893 . At World Parliament of Religions , Chicago.

Well known event and speech, am just quoting a few sentences from the speech which are most critical for this discussion.  

"Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now."   

And he goes on to conclude "If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance: ‘Help and not Fight,’ ‘Assimilation and not Destruction,’ ‘Harmony and Peace and not Dissension’.”

2. The Eureka moment for Mahatma Gandhi - Satyagragha 9 -11- 1906 ,  South Africa.

Amazing that within a span of just 13 years, Swami's call took 'flesh and blood' and became a perfect tool to address the burning social/ political issue in South Africa. Yes, there was a Mahandas who became Mahatma thro the adoption of Satyagraha as a non violent political tool. Gandhiji put his satyagraha message thus : 'If mankind is to sustain, it need  to accept truth and non-violence.' Therefore, his eureka moment and his life ( my life is my message ) shows the immutable correlation  between means and ends  - and that is what makes the second 9- 11 historically significant.

Here are a few comments by equally evolved souls of that tome: 

 'It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity,' wrote Albert Einstein. Martin Luther King Jr, who is the ‘American Gandhi’ said: “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power; we have guided missiles and misguided men...; if we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values: that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control... The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.'

Therefore, we are forced to remember 9-11 with sadness only because the world failed to understand Swami's clarion call and Gandhiji who converted that call into practical, political tool. 

Had the villains of 9-11- 2001  had the wisdom, the world would have been so much better.... But yes, the path is harder and longer.  Its not late yet, we still see signs of similar tragedies  developing at different parts of the world and mostly in human minds..... The moral arc and sense of justice are missing sadly.............Hope we can look back in time and correct ourselves. 

(Idea Courtesy - a 2013 Article by Mr.S Kulkarni)